Download as a PDF file: Human Rights in Ukraine 2025 and the First Half of 2026. Prisoners’ rights in Ukraine: Chronic problems.pdf
The report by Yevhen Zakharov, “Prisoners’ Rights in Ukraine: Chronic Problems,” is part of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group’s annual publication Human Rights in Ukraine 2025–2026. It draws on the KHPG shadow report to Ukraine’s Seventh Periodic Report on the implementation of the UN Convention against Torture. The author examines what he considers the three most serious violations of prisoners’ rights: poor conditions of detention, unlawful use of force, and inadequate medical care.
The first section links poor detention conditions to chronic underfunding of the penitentiary system. Even with the additional allocations of 2025, the system receives no more than 45% of what it needs. The situation is especially severe in pre-trial detention centres. The author reviews the case law of the European Court of Human Rights: more than 80 judgments in the Nevmerzhitsky v. Ukraine group of cases, the pilot judgment Sukachov v. Ukraine (2020), and 66 judgments under Article 3 in 2024 alone. Zhovti Vody Correctional Colony No. 26 serves as an example. On 2 April 2026, the ECtHR found violations of Articles 3, 13 and 34 of the Convention concerning this colony in Ukrainskyi and Others v. Ukraine.
The second section addresses systematic violence, extortion and intimidation of prisoners. It analyses in detail the events at Oleksiivka Correctional Colony No. 25 in January 2020 and the ineffective investigation that followed. It also covers cases at Berdiansk Colony No. 77, Bozhkovska Colony No. 16 (where a prisoner died as a result of torture), and the Poltava pre-trial detention centre. The author notes some progress: in August 2025 the management of Colony No. 25 was detained and charged with torture. He stresses, however, that these cases must be brought to verdicts.
The third section shows that the reform of prison healthcare has not improved medical care. There are shortages of doctors, medicines and equipment. Treatment in civilian hospitals is effectively available only to those who can pay for it. The release of seriously ill prisoners is discussed separately. Courts follow a 1973 position of the Plenum of the Supreme Court rather than ECtHR standards, notably Yermolenko v. Ukraine. As a result, sick prisoners often die before release, as ten fatal cases cited in the report illustrate.
The report concludes with findings and recommendations, including:
- placing the Health Care Centre of the State Criminal Executive Service under the Ministry of Health;
- ensuring mandatory video recording of any use of force, with personal accountability when recordings are missing;
- granting civil society monitors unhindered access to institutions;
- publishing statistics on prisoner morbidity and mortality.
The report will be of value to human rights defenders, lawyers, researchers and public officials working on penitentiary reform.
