Explaining the Slow Pace of War Crimes Justice

In the summer of 2024, Serhii Pokutnyi was formally accused of the war crime of forcing Ukrainian citizens into the de facto armed forces of the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR).

Investigators claimed that, as the “head of the military commissariat department of the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) for the city of Alchevsk,” Pokutnyi participated in this mobilisation. In August 2024, his case was sent to the Petropavlivskyi district court of the Dnipropetrovsk region - where it remained stalled at a preparatory stage for over a year. 

According to a court ruling, six preliminary hearings were postponed because the defendant failed to appear. It was not until September 18, 2025, that the court approved a special trial in absentia, scheduling the first substantive hearing for March 3, 2026.

Experts note that such delays are not unusual in Ukraine’s overstretched war crimes justice system. Administrative challenges, staffing issues and lack of capacity mean that over the past three-and-a-half years, courts have handed down only around 140 verdicts – a rate of around just four per month – with some cases dragging on since 2022.

To date, over 187,000 incidents of alleged war crimes have been registered in Ukraine.

“Unfortunately, this colossal gap between the number of documented war crimes and the number of verdicts is only going to grow,” said Anna Rassamakhina, an expert on international humanitarian law at the Media Initiative for Human Rights (MIHR) NGO.

She explained that hearings were postponed for a myriad of reasons: scheduling conflicts, staff holiday or sick leave, a lack of available courtrooms and the failure of witnesses to appear. In other cases, hearings were delayed because public summonses for the accused were not published on time.

As well as the case against Pokutnyi, other prosecutions involving forced mobilisation in Luhansk are also proceeding slowly. For instance, a case against Viktoriia Turubara, who according to investigators serves as the “head of the military enlistment office” in Dovzhansk, a city occupied since 2014, was first sent to the Shakhtarsk city court in May 2024. 

The defendant’s lawyer filed a motion for the case to be heard by a three-judge panel, but this was impossible as only two judges remained at the Shakhtarsk court. Consequently, in May 2025, the Dnipro Court of Appeal ruled to move the case to the Pavlohrad court in the Dnipropetrovsk region, where pre-trial proceedings re-started.

In October 2024, prosecutors referred another case to the Pavlohrad City-District Court against Leonid Pasichnyk, the leader of the so-called LPR. He is accused of the war crime of organising the mass mobilisation of Luhansk region residents to fight against Ukraine.

According to the investigation, Pasichnyk acted in collusion with the Russian leadership to enforce the general mobilisation of Ukrainian citizens in violation of the Geneva and Hague Conventions. He is currently wanted and is being summoned to appear in court. 

As stated in court records, the preliminary hearing was repeatedly adjourned due to the defence’s failure to appear. Shortly thereafter, the state-appointed lawyer from the Legal Aid Centre declared he was unable to represent the defendant, prompting the court to appoint a new one. The case remains in the preliminary stage, with no rulings scheduling the case for trial appearing in the register.

The pattern is repeated across numerous areas of Ukraine. 

The Donetsk Regional Prosecutor’s Office reported that as of September 30, 2025, there were 19 cases involving war crimes charges currently before the courts. In six of these, proceedings have been temporarily suspended because the defendants were wanted by the authorities.

Court hearings were ongoing in the other 13 cases. The first war crimes cases were sent to court back in 2021; since then, two verdicts have been handed down and come into legal force.

Officials in the Dnipropetrovsk region, which is handling cases transferred from the Luhansk Oblast Prosecutor’s Office, confirm that war crimes under Article 438 of Ukraine’s criminal code have been actively prosecuted since 2022.

According to official data from the regional State Judicial Administration, 12 new cases were filed with the courts in 2024. In total, 19 cases against 25 individuals were under review in the Dnipropetrovsk region that year. Of these, only one has resulted in a conviction, while the remaining 18 are still pending.

Facing Delays

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s frontline courts have been operating under difficult conditions. The jurisdiction of some has been transferred to courts in safer regions, while others continue to work despite the challenges.

Problems arise during power or internet outages, especially as state-appointed lawyers are generally not based locally and must join hearings online. As a result, court hearings have to be postponed.

Another factor is administrative procedure. Scheduling hearings, accounting for judges’ leave and processing official notices through the State Judicial Administration all cause significant delays. Judges also report excessive workloads due to a rising number of cases as well as a shortage of court staff caused by low salaries.

Another factor in the slow progress of many cases is that Ukraine’s criminal code requires that defendants be notified of court hearings multiple times. Summonses are published in official state publications. If an accused person is in an occupied territory or in Russia, this publication is considered proper notification.

The process is further complicated by the fact that most of the accused are not Ukrainian citizens, making it impossible to bring them to court.

There are isolated cases where defendants contact their lawyers regarding the charges. According to Svitlana Shyrina, a judge at the Khortytskyi district court in Zaporizhzhia, defence attorneys in these cases usually seek acquittal and file appeals. The appeal is then forwarded to a higher court.

“The courts strive to hear these cases as quickly as possible, but the volume of case materials is substantial and the evidence should be thoroughly examined. This takes time,” Judge Shyrina concluded.

The Khortytskyi court has tried only two war crimes cases in the last three years, both resulting in convictions. One trial lasted a year and two months, while the other concluded in nine months.

Three more cases were filed in 2025, bringing the court’s total to six as of September 30. Four of those cases remain pending: two have been in hearings for over six months and the other two for fewer than six.

While frustrating for survivors and families of victims, First Deputy Head of the Supreme Court’s Secretariat, Rasim Babanly, has cautioned against overly high expectations regarding the pace of war crimes trials.

He told a recent Ukrainian Bar Association (UBA) event that since national courts received around four million new cases each year - while another five million remained pending - expecting swift verdicts would mean questioning the very legitimacy of the justice process.

“From the moment of reporting the suspicion to the appeal decision — these time limits fully comply with Article 6 of the [European Court of Human Rights] Convention,” he told the event. “Yes, we would like it faster — but the fact that we have such verdicts in such terms is a positive thing."