Russia’s occupation of Ukrainian territories represents more than merely a temporary loss of effective control by Ukraine over part of its regions. Rather, it is a situation in which the law ceases to perform its fundamental function of protecting individuals from arbitrary state conduct. The occupied territories are transforming into a legal vacuum, where legal uncertainty, institutional degradation, and the violent imposition of a hostile “legal order” are ousting the principles of justice, the rule of law, and respect for human rights. Having no consideration for restoring Ukraine’s sovereignty over the occupied territories while discussing the “peace” is equal to legitimizing impunity and normalizing international crimes.
Subject to the norms of IHL, occupation is temporary and does not grant the occupying state sovereign rights over the occupied territory. However, the RF’s approach demonstrates a fundamentally different logic: in place of limited and temporary administration, systematic integration takes place; in place of ensuring minimum standards of protection for the civilian population, dismantling of the national legal order and imposition of a repressive administrative and judicial infrastructure occurs. Consequently, the occupation, which is subject to regulation by international law, is transformed into a mechanism for the irreversible destruction of the Ukrainian legal framework.
The occupied territories of Ukraine are not a “gray” or “buffer” zone. These are territories of lawlessness, where the law as an instrument of protection has been eradicated, and legislation has become a means of suppression, control, and assimilation. The unlawful imposition of Russian legislation, the establishment of Russian-controlled “courts” and “law enforcement agencies,” persecution for pro-Ukrainian views, systematic restrictions on freedom of speech, religion, and the right to assembly, unlawful deportations and forcible transfer, seizure of property, russification of education, and militarization of childhood are not isolated, sporadic violations. Rather, they are part of a coordinated policy aimed at eradicating Ukrainian identity, forcibly altering the demographic composition of the population, and “legalizing” annexation in the foreseeable future.
The absence or fictitious nature of legal remedies in the occupied territories poses a particular danger. Given that the occupying authorities have been granted unrestricted powers by the RF to adopt new laws or apply Russian laws and interpret them, any attempt to challenge their conduct is futile and, in most cases, dangerous. It is this systemic absence of effective means of protection that transforms multiple human rights violations into administrative practice in the understanding of international judicial and quasi-judicial bodies — a practice marked both by the recurrence of violations and their acceptance and encouragement by both the occupying authorities and the RF as a whole.
Under the above-described circumstances, human rights are no longer assured, and justice is no longer attainable. Yet both are prerequisites for any genuine peace. The idea of “peace without justice,” which occasionally surfaces in political discourse, may seem naive, though it is in fact profoundly dangerous. This idea ignores the experiences of victims, negates accountability, and treats crime as an acceptable “reality.” Where long-standing injustices go unaddressed, peace becomes nothing more than a rhetorical construct, devoid of moral and legal meaning.
Occupied territories are not simply spaces in the geographical plane, but legal wounds on the body of the state and the international legal system. Their healing is impossible unless the scale of violations, the depth of institutional destruction, and the responsibility of the occupying state are honestly acknowledged. The present study reveals the mechanisms of establishment of the occupation “legal order,” identifies systemic human rights violations in the occupied territories of Ukraine, and assesses the effectiveness of existing legal remedies.
The authors argue that documenting violations, conducting legal analysis, and publicly discussing the phenomenon of lawlessness in the occupied territories is more than an object of research; it is a form of resistance to its normalization. If the law is unable to protect people in the occupied territories, international mechanisms — legal, political, diplomatic, and economic — must intervene. For silence in the face of those who have become hostages in a lawless territory is always an indirect justification of violence.
This material was prepared with the financial support of the Czech organization People in Need as part of the SOS Ukraine initiative. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect their views.