Justice and judicial reform in the context of Russia’s war on Ukraine

How does the role of a lawyer change during wartime? Is it possible to advocate for domestic reform in a country suffering mass casualties, the destruction of key infrastructure and the forced displacement of millions of people?

Stephen Matthews, Senior Media and Communications Consultant with the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC), spoke to Nadia Volkova, founder and director of the Ukrainian Legal Advisory Group (ULAG).

I’m on the phone to Nadia Volkova. She is in her apartment in Kyiv. It is late February and over the previous 36 hours, Russia has continued to pummel Ukraine with missiles and drones. Through the long Ukrainian winter Russia has again targeted Ukraine’s infrastructure leaving millions without heating, electricity and water. 

It is four years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. How do you keep going?

‘Yes, this winter has been particularly challenging. It’s hard in the sense that, as lawyers, a lot of the work we do is intellectual, but we are operating at a basic level of physical safety and security and survival. That really affects your intellectual capacities and capabilities.’

Cold and exhaustion are not the only challenges. The range of crimes and violations recorded demands extraordinary resilience from those working with victims.

‘It’s a long list (of crimes), but in that sense it’s not that different to what we had before the full-scale invasion.

‘Ukraine has been a testing ground for Russia since 2014. With the full-scale invasion, they just extrapolated the same crimes they had been committing across more territory. I guess filtrationwas added to the list, but we’d had deportations of the civilian population, of children. Deportations have been a constant… also killings, torture, detention.

‘Serious sexual and gender-based violence was being committed prior to the full-scale invasion, it just wasn’t something that was being talked about.’

The volume of cases must have increased. Have you had to prioritise more?

‘Yes, we’ve had to start prioritising because otherwise we would have drowned.

‘Most of us used to work with a different organization. When we set up ULAG in 2018 we carried on working on the cases we had started there. Most involve POWs or civilians who were detained and tortured by either the separatists (the Russian-backed de facto regimes in Luhansk and Donestsk) or Russian forces.

‘After the full-scale invasion, we tried to see where – alongside representing victims – we could also build the capacity of the system, of the authorities, to do a better job in prosecuting these cases.

‘We have to limit the number of cases that we pick every year, because we are working under very difficult security conditions. It’s a big responsibility and a big risk at the same time.’

Nadia’s work, in human rights and international criminal law, did not begin in 2022 or 2014. Following time in London, including at EHRAC, she returned to Ukraine in 2013.

‘Ukraine was still digesting the aftermath of the fall of the USSR. We were trying to get rid of the old ways, but it was difficult.

‘There was an issue of independence, an issue of strategic planning and of using strategic approaches to investigations.

‘Systemic change needed to happen. And I don’t think Ukraine had the right people to guide and navigate that process successfully. There were progressive minds working in the system, but overall it was run by representatives of the old ways. We needed new blood for sure. We needed a catalyst.’

In November 2013, Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych, already unpopular due to alleged corruption and an increasingly authoritarian approach, yielded to pressure from Russia and pulled out of an agreement intended to strengthen ties between Ukraine and the European Union. His decision sparked three months of mass protests, referred to as Maidan.

‘Maidan was like a clash of the old generation and new generation in many ways. And in that regard, it kicked off all the big changes, including in the judicial system and justice system.’

Yanukovych eventually fled Ukraine in February 2014, aided by the Russian military. Russia’s subsequent occupation and annexation of Crimea, and its backing of separatists in the Donbas can be seen as a direct response to Maidan and the desire among Ukrainians for closer ties with Europe.

In addition to sparking a humanitarian crisis, Russia’s actions brought a number of legal challenges into sharp focus.

‘A lot of the incidents or crimes that have been taking place since 2014 can very much be classified as international crimes, but the knowledge of international law within the Ukrainian legal system was non-existent. Prosecutors and investigators might have had a very brief brush with the basic concepts of international law, but it was not their main subject. The system in Ukraine was very closed off and very narrow minded.’

You had to balance the need for reform with a crisis in the east. Was it possible to maintain momentum for domestic legal reform or were you immediately pulled into dealing with conflict crimes and the other issues in Crimea and the Donbas?

‘Well, we’ve always thought of those two things as parallel processes, one flowing from another.

‘After February 2014, we focused mostly on Donbas.

‘Crimea was more straightforward, legally speaking. It was annexation and occupation. With Donbas, the situation was a lot muddier. There were debates going on at the international and domestic level – was this an international conflict, or non-international, or mixed? And that translated into difficulties in classifying the offences. So, Donbas was where we needed to direct our attention.

‘So, we started working on actual cases, human rights violations and crimes. When we identified a violation, we’d look at the circumstances, the context, then how the domestic system was handling the investigation. And we saw this emerging trend that the domestic system was not really handling these cases very well because it was missing key ingredients, starting with the appropriate legislation – not just the substantive legislation, but also standards. There was also a lack of knowledge among the investigators and prosecutors about how to investigate these crimes. So, we started working on reform, advocating for changes at the legislative level. At the same time, we tried to bring a more global perspective to these things. So, there was a kind of cocktail of different processes going on simultaneously.’

You mentioned that Donbas was legally muddier.

‘Yes, the biggest challenge there was to show the connection between the separatist regimes and Russia, to show the separatists’ dependency on Russian support. Those regions have historically been under a lot of Russian influence. They’re close to the border. They have always been sort of a domain for the Russian-speaking population. So, it was complicated, the situation there. It has always been complicated. And that complexity translated into legal challenges as well.

‘There wasn’t an international institution that would take responsibility for saying, “This is the type of conflict we are dealing with here”. The United Nations or the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) could have made that assessment, but they didn’t. The International Criminal Court (ICC) took a long time.

‘They would frame it so carefully. The ICC made a provisional assessment – it’s an international armed conflict in parallel with a non-international armed conflict. A similar kind of framing or wording was used by the ICRC. It wasn’t straightforward before the full-scale invasion.

‘We struggled with that, because the definition affected how we’d classify crimes. And it got even muddier because – domestically – Ukraine also refused to call it an armed conflict. They called it every other possible name under the sun – it was an “anti-terrorist operation”, kind of like how Russia described the full-scale invasion – anything but call it a war.

What was behind that refusal? Was it problematic for Ukraine to classify it as a war in terms of the consequences of doing so?

‘They used to say that if we called it an armed conflict, it would mean that Ukraine was also a party to that armed conflict, and that would mean Ukraine would also have responsibility. If, then, Ukrainians were to violate International Humanitarian Law, for instance, or International Criminal Law, they would be prosecuted. That was also the reason for Ukraine stalling with ratification (of the Rome Statute) for so many years.

‘Ukraine could have handled it differently. The people making the decisions were narrow-minded in their understanding of international law and international criminal law and how to use both to our advantage.’

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion, ULAG helped convene the Ukraine 5AM Coalition, a group of almost 50 NGOS that came together with the aim of ‘protect(ing) the victims of Russian armed aggression in Ukraine and… bring(ing) to justice the senior leadership of the Russian Federation and the direct perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity.’

ULAG has continued to litigate crimes and violations. In July 2025, the Group published a Needs Assessment of the Ukraine’s Justice System: Delivering Meaningful Justice to the Victims and Survivors of the Armed Conflict. It has continued to advocate, at an international level, for greater accountability.

Ukraine has now ratified the Rome statute. In terms of the international structures that are required for accountability, have we made progress? Where are we at?

‘Nobody understands where we’re at. In terms of criminal law, the International Criminal Court is facing existential challenges right now. So, nobody really has a clear understanding of what’s happening. And that’s not just frustrating, in a sense it’s tragic because the ICC is – or at least was envisaged to be – designed for this type of cases and this calibre of criminals. And it doesn’t seem like it’s going anywhere.

So, what are the routes to accountability? What can victims expect? And is there anything the international system could be doing that it is not doing?

‘That’s the million-dollar question. And it’s one that we are constantly trying to explore and to search for an answer to.

‘I think we actually have a huge issue with the global justice system.

‘Everything is becoming more fragmented. The world tried to step away from solutions like ad hoc tribunals, but I’m afraid that’s going to be the path we’ll have to go down now they’ve set up the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine. Unfortunately, that process is going to be limited to the crime of aggression and most likely it’s not going to be as effective as it could have been.

‘I think the other way is to reinforce the domestic system, support it with an international element, essentially embedding it into domestic system. Then you can build the capacity of the domestic system and eventually phase out the international element, like they did it in Bosnia.

‘So, in global terms, I think there are various ways and lessons learned that we can pick up on. We can be creative, but I think we need to address each situation individually. Something that might work for Ukraine won’t work for Syria. You have to look at what’s happening on the ground (in each country), what the specific challenges are, what the political climate is and – based on all of these factors – decide what might work in each conflict situation.

You have worked with partners, including EHRAC to strengthen understanding of international mechanisms. What has been achieved and what remains to be done?

ULAG has been incredibly fortunate with the partnerships that we have built throughout the years. The international partners we have been collaborating with have been a great source of support and inspiration. They have been instrumental in sharing their experience in litigating international crimes and imparting their knowledge and skill in advocating for a change. EHRAC holds a special place in our hearts – it has been one of ULAG’s most long-standing partners who have built our capacity in litigating complex cases using creative and innovative approaches on a practical level. Our partnership has proved – in the practical sense – that when learning how to litigate human rights cases, the most efficient way is by fusing expert knowledge and experience of the legal standards and jurisprudence with knowledge of a pertinent context and circumstances in which a violation occurred. And this revelation has been fundamental in scaling up our activities with other partners. Now this also seems to be approach used by authorities domestically.’     

We return to the people at the heart of all this, the victims and survivors.

You said at the start of our conversation that you are trying to operate on an intellectual level, but also trying to deal with your basic needs. And around you, your fellow Ukrainians are also trying to deal with their basic needs – trying to stay safe, stay reasonably warm, get food, all these things. It may be a hard question to answer, but in that context, is justice something that people in Ukraine are thinking about?

‘I mean it’s… it’s a difficult question to answer in the sense that I can only be guided by what I hear and what I understand when I speak to victims and survivors. They are our compass. And on the one hand, they’re incredibly motivated, they want to be part of the process and they want to see justice achieved.

‘They have a very concrete and specific understanding of what justice looks like to them. But at the same time, there’s a lot of distrust and disappointment in the existing system. That puts a lot of pressure on the international institutions to deliver, and so we have to be clear what we can and can’t achieve through international litigation.

‘It’s almost like we are the filter – a not very effective filter, to be honest – between the victims and the institutions. We don’t have people from the ICC who come and say, “Okay, these are our limitations and this is what we can do for you”. We have to provide that information and often the victims don’t trust us. They won’t believe us. They think that what we’re telling them is our subjective understanding and interpretation of what’s happening and so it gets muddied again.’

As the conflict with Russia enters a thirteenth year, Nadia says she still draws strength from her ‘incredibly dedicated’ team.

‘They are driven by bigger things… It’s chaos and it’s destruction, but at the same time while things are falling apart, there’s also an opportunity for building something new and more powerful.’

‘Once that window of opportunity closes, it’s gone. So we are trying to act while that window is still open.’How does the role of a lawyer change during wartime? Is it possible to advocate for domestic reform in a country suffering mass casualties, the destruction of key infrastructure and the forced displacement of millions of people?

Stephen Matthews, Senior Media and Communications Consultant with the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC), spoke to Nadia Volkova, founder and director of the Ukrainian Legal Advisory Group (ULAG).

I’m on the phone to Nadia Volkova. She is in her apartment in Kyiv. It is late February and over the previous 36 hours, Russia has continued to pummel Ukraine with missiles and drones. Through the long Ukrainian winter Russia has again targeted Ukraine’s infrastructure leaving millions without heating, electricity and water. 

It is four years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. How do you keep going?

‘Yes, this winter has been particularly challenging. It’s hard in the sense that, as lawyers, a lot of the work we do is intellectual, but we are operating at a basic level of physical safety and security and survival. That really affects your intellectual capacities and capabilities.’

Cold and exhaustion are not the only challenges. The range of crimes and violations recorded demands extraordinary resilience from those working with victims.

‘It’s a long list (of crimes), but in that sense it’s not that different to what we had before the full-scale invasion.

‘Ukraine has been a testing ground for Russia since 2014. With the full-scale invasion, they just extrapolated the same crimes they had been committing across more territory. I guess filtrationwas added to the list, but we’d had deportations of the civilian population, of children. Deportations have been a constant… also killings, torture, detention.

‘Serious sexual and gender-based violence was being committed prior to the full-scale invasion, it just wasn’t something that was being talked about.’

The volume of cases must have increased. Have you had to prioritise more?

‘Yes, we’ve had to start prioritising because otherwise we would have drowned.

‘Most of us used to work with a different organization. When we set up ULAG in 2018 we carried on working on the cases we had started there. Most involve POWs or civilians who were detained and tortured by either the separatists (the Russian-backed de facto regimes in Luhansk and Donestsk) or Russian forces.

‘After the full-scale invasion, we tried to see where – alongside representing victims – we could also build the capacity of the system, of the authorities, to do a better job in prosecuting these cases.

‘We have to limit the number of cases that we pick every year, because we are working under very difficult security conditions. It’s a big responsibility and a big risk at the same time.’

Nadia’s work, in human rights and international criminal law, did not begin in 2022 or 2014. Following time in London, including at EHRAC, she returned to Ukraine in 2013.

‘Ukraine was still digesting the aftermath of the fall of the USSR. We were trying to get rid of the old ways, but it was difficult.

‘There was an issue of independence, an issue of strategic planning and of using strategic approaches to investigations.

‘Systemic change needed to happen. And I don’t think Ukraine had the right people to guide and navigate that process successfully. There were progressive minds working in the system, but overall it was run by representatives of the old ways. We needed new blood for sure. We needed a catalyst.’

In November 2013, Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych, already unpopular due to alleged corruption and an increasingly authoritarian approach, yielded to pressure from Russia and pulled out of an agreement intended to strengthen ties between Ukraine and the European Union. His decision sparked three months of mass protests, referred to as Maidan.

‘Maidan was like a clash of the old generation and new generation in many ways. And in that regard, it kicked off all the big changes, including in the judicial system and justice system.’

Yanukovych eventually fled Ukraine in February 2014, aided by the Russian military. Russia’s subsequent occupation and annexation of Crimea, and its backing of separatists in the Donbas can be seen as a direct response to Maidan and the desire among Ukrainians for closer ties with Europe.

In addition to sparking a humanitarian crisis, Russia’s actions brought a number of legal challenges into sharp focus.

‘A lot of the incidents or crimes that have been taking place since 2014 can very much be classified as international crimes, but the knowledge of international law within the Ukrainian legal system was non-existent. Prosecutors and investigators might have had a very brief brush with the basic concepts of international law, but it was not their main subject. The system in Ukraine was very closed off and very narrow minded.’

You had to balance the need for reform with a crisis in the east. Was it possible to maintain momentum for domestic legal reform or were you immediately pulled into dealing with conflict crimes and the other issues in Crimea and the Donbas?

‘Well, we’ve always thought of those two things as parallel processes, one flowing from another.

‘After February 2014, we focused mostly on Donbas.

‘Crimea was more straightforward, legally speaking. It was annexation and occupation. With Donbas, the situation was a lot muddier. There were debates going on at the international and domestic level – was this an international conflict, or non-international, or mixed? And that translated into difficulties in classifying the offences. So, Donbas was where we needed to direct our attention.

‘So, we started working on actual cases, human rights violations and crimes. When we identified a violation, we’d look at the circumstances, the context, then how the domestic system was handling the investigation. And we saw this emerging trend that the domestic system was not really handling these cases very well because it was missing key ingredients, starting with the appropriate legislation – not just the substantive legislation, but also standards. There was also a lack of knowledge among the investigators and prosecutors about how to investigate these crimes. So, we started working on reform, advocating for changes at the legislative level. At the same time, we tried to bring a more global perspective to these things. So, there was a kind of cocktail of different processes going on simultaneously.’

You mentioned that Donbas was legally muddier.

‘Yes, the biggest challenge there was to show the connection between the separatist regimes and Russia, to show the separatists’ dependency on Russian support. Those regions have historically been under a lot of Russian influence. They’re close to the border. They have always been sort of a domain for the Russian-speaking population. So, it was complicated, the situation there. It has always been complicated. And that complexity translated into legal challenges as well.

‘There wasn’t an international institution that would take responsibility for saying, “This is the type of conflict we are dealing with here”. The United Nations or the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) could have made that assessment, but they didn’t. The International Criminal Court (ICC) took a long time.

‘They would frame it so carefully. The ICC made a provisional assessment – it’s an international armed conflict in parallel with a non-international armed conflict. A similar kind of framing or wording was used by the ICRC. It wasn’t straightforward before the full-scale invasion.

‘We struggled with that, because the definition affected how we’d classify crimes. And it got even muddier because – domestically – Ukraine also refused to call it an armed conflict. They called it every other possible name under the sun – it was an “anti-terrorist operation”, kind of like how Russia described the full-scale invasion – anything but call it a war.

What was behind that refusal? Was it problematic for Ukraine to classify it as a war in terms of the consequences of doing so?

‘They used to say that if we called it an armed conflict, it would mean that Ukraine was also a party to that armed conflict, and that would mean Ukraine would also have responsibility. If, then, Ukrainians were to violate International Humanitarian Law, for instance, or International Criminal Law, they would be prosecuted. That was also the reason for Ukraine stalling with ratification (of the Rome Statute) for so many years.

‘Ukraine could have handled it differently. The people making the decisions were narrow-minded in their understanding of international law and international criminal law and how to use both to our advantage.’

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion, ULAG helped convene the Ukraine 5AM Coalition, a group of almost 50 NGOS that came together with the aim of ‘protect(ing) the victims of Russian armed aggression in Ukraine and… bring(ing) to justice the senior leadership of the Russian Federation and the direct perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity.’

ULAG has continued to litigate crimes and violations. In July 2025, the Group published a Needs Assessment of the Ukraine’s Justice System: Delivering Meaningful Justice to the Victims and Survivors of the Armed Conflict. It has continued to advocate, at an international level, for greater accountability.

Ukraine has now ratified the Rome statute. In terms of the international structures that are required for accountability, have we made progress? Where are we at?

‘Nobody understands where we’re at. In terms of criminal law, the International Criminal Court is facing existential challenges right now. So, nobody really has a clear understanding of what’s happening. And that’s not just frustrating, in a sense it’s tragic because the ICC is – or at least was envisaged to be – designed for this type of cases and this calibre of criminals. And it doesn’t seem like it’s going anywhere.

So, what are the routes to accountability? What can victims expect? And is there anything the international system could be doing that it is not doing?

‘That’s the million-dollar question. And it’s one that we are constantly trying to explore and to search for an answer to.

‘I think we actually have a huge issue with the global justice system.

‘Everything is becoming more fragmented. The world tried to step away from solutions like ad hoc tribunals, but I’m afraid that’s going to be the path we’ll have to go down now they’ve set up the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine. Unfortunately, that process is going to be limited to the crime of aggression and most likely it’s not going to be as effective as it could have been.

‘I think the other way is to reinforce the domestic system, support it with an international element, essentially embedding it into domestic system. Then you can build the capacity of the domestic system and eventually phase out the international element, like they did it in Bosnia.

‘So, in global terms, I think there are various ways and lessons learned that we can pick up on. We can be creative, but I think we need to address each situation individually. Something that might work for Ukraine won’t work for Syria. You have to look at what’s happening on the ground (in each country), what the specific challenges are, what the political climate is and – based on all of these factors – decide what might work in each conflict situation.

You have worked with partners, including EHRAC to strengthen understanding of international mechanisms. What has been achieved and what remains to be done?

ULAG has been incredibly fortunate with the partnerships that we have built throughout the years. The international partners we have been collaborating with have been a great source of support and inspiration. They have been instrumental in sharing their experience in litigating international crimes and imparting their knowledge and skill in advocating for a change. EHRAC holds a special place in our hearts – it has been one of ULAG’s most long-standing partners who have built our capacity in litigating complex cases using creative and innovative approaches on a practical level. Our partnership has proved – in the practical sense – that when learning how to litigate human rights cases, the most efficient way is by fusing expert knowledge and experience of the legal standards and jurisprudence with knowledge of a pertinent context and circumstances in which a violation occurred. And this revelation has been fundamental in scaling up our activities with other partners. Now this also seems to be approach used by authorities domestically.’     

We return to the people at the heart of all this, the victims and survivors.

You said at the start of our conversation that you are trying to operate on an intellectual level, but also trying to deal with your basic needs. And around you, your fellow Ukrainians are also trying to deal with their basic needs – trying to stay safe, stay reasonably warm, get food, all these things. It may be a hard question to answer, but in that context, is justice something that people in Ukraine are thinking about?

‘I mean it’s… it’s a difficult question to answer in the sense that I can only be guided by what I hear and what I understand when I speak to victims and survivors. They are our compass. And on the one hand, they’re incredibly motivated, they want to be part of the process and they want to see justice achieved.

‘They have a very concrete and specific understanding of what justice looks like to them. But at the same time, there’s a lot of distrust and disappointment in the existing system. That puts a lot of pressure on the international institutions to deliver, and so we have to be clear what we can and can’t achieve through international litigation.

‘It’s almost like we are the filter – a not very effective filter, to be honest – between the victims and the institutions. We don’t have people from the ICC who come and say, “Okay, these are our limitations and this is what we can do for you”. We have to provide that information and often the victims don’t trust us. They won’t believe us. They think that what we’re telling them is our subjective understanding and interpretation of what’s happening and so it gets muddied again.’

As the conflict with Russia enters a thirteenth year, Nadia says she still draws strength from her ‘incredibly dedicated’ team.

‘They are driven by bigger things… It’s chaos and it’s destruction, but at the same time while things are falling apart, there’s also an opportunity for building something new and more powerful.’

‘Once that window of opportunity closes, it’s gone. So we are trying to act while that window is still open.’