ANNUAL REPORT on the state of observance and protection of human and civil rights and freedoms in Ukraine in 2023
Source: Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights
The year 2023 was yet another year of testing the resilience not only of human rights protection mechanisms in Ukraine. Major challenges arose for the international security system and for maintaining solidarity among countries opposing dictatorships and aggressors. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was a blatant rejection by the Kremlin of a world order based on clear rules and values of respect for human dignity. Nevertheless, Russia, without any hesitation or sentiment, launched a brutal and unjust war in Europe. It openly flaunts its impunity by trampling on the rules by which the world has lived for nearly 80 years. From the very beginning of the aggression against Ukraine, the targets of Russian missiles were not military facilities, but people: those who chose freedom, their own state, and their own language. The Russian Federation’s actions in 2023 leave no doubt that inflicting pain, murder, and torture on those unable to mount armed resistance, and the destruction of the homes and lives of Ukraine’s civilians—these are the Russian Federation’s true objectives.
We must acknowledge: the international security system, as well as the norms of international humanitarian and criminal law, have ceased to function as they should. Global security can only be based on rules if those rules are followed. And today, Ukraine is not only at war and defending European Union countries from war on their territory, but also serves as a “testing ground” for developing new rules to deter the aggressor—rules that could put an end to genocidal intentions and mass human rights violations, and prevent such incidents from occurring in the future anywhere in the world.
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The year 2023 was yet another year of testing the resilience not only of human rights protection mechanisms in Ukraine. Major challenges arose for the international security system and for maintaining solidarity among countries opposing dictatorships and aggressors. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was a blatant rejection by the Kremlin of a world order based on clear rules and values of respect for human dignity. Nevertheless, Russia, without any hesitation or sentiment, launched a brutal and unjust war in Europe. It openly flaunts its impunity by trampling on the rules by which the world has lived for nearly 80 years. From the very beginning of the aggression against Ukraine, the targets of Russian missiles were not military facilities, but people: those who chose freedom, their own state, and their own language. The Russian Federation’s actions in 2023 leave no doubt that inflicting pain, murder, and torture on those unable to mount armed resistance, and the destruction of the homes and lives of Ukraine’s civilians—these are the Russian Federation’s true objectives.
We must acknowledge: the international security system, as well as the norms of international humanitarian and criminal law, have ceased to function as they should. Global security can only be based on rules if those rules are followed. And today, Ukraine is not only at war and defending European Union countries from war on their territory, but also serves as a “testing ground” for developing new rules to deter the aggressor—rules that could put an end to genocidal intentions and mass human rights violations, and prevent such incidents from occurring in the future anywhere in the world.
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