Why Ukraine must respond better to hate crimes on its path to EU

According to data from international organisations, Ukraine has declined for the third consecutive year in the Rule of Law Index under the criterion of Equal Treatment and Absence of Discrimination, falling from 30th place in 2022 to 43rd place in 2025 among 143 countries.

This trend reflects how effectively the state protects people from unequal treatment, discrimination and intolerance. One of the most significant gaps is hate crimes.

Read more about how and why Ukraine should strengthen its response to hate crimes in the article by Olha Poliakova of the human rights organisation Gender Stream: Punishing intolerance like in Europe: how Ukraine must change its laws on attacks against 'those who are different'. 

A hate crime occurs when a person is attacked not because of a random conflict, but because of their actual or perceived membership in a particular group – whether based on race, language, religion, disability, health status, sexual orientation, gender identity or another protected characteristic.

The problem is that the Ukrainian legal system does not always recognise this motive.

An attack may be classified as hooliganism, assault, or another general criminal offense. But if investigators fail to examine why the victim was targeted, the case loses a crucial part of its meaning.

The European Court of Human Rights has already drawn attention to this issue.

For the European Union, this is a matter of the quality of the legal system. If the motive of intolerance is neither recorded, investigated, nor reflected in the court's decision, the state fails to provide full protection to the victim and fails to acknowledge that such attacks pose a particular danger to society.

The European Commission has also explicitly pointed to shortcomings in Ukrainian legislation in this area.

In its 2025 EU Enlargement Package, the Commission noted that Ukrainian legislation does not currently comply with Council Framework Decision 2008/913/JHA on combating certain forms of racism and xenophobia through criminal law, particularly with regard to the definitions and scope of such offenses.

The Commission also emphasised that Ukraine still lacks a systematic mechanism for collecting data on hate crimes, and that sexual orientation and gender identity are not covered by criminal legislation in this context.

This is an important point. It is not merely about one group of people or one article of the Criminal Code. It concerns the state's ability to meet EU standards related to the rule of law, equality and non-discrimination.

That is why anti-discrimination legislation is part of the broader package of fundamental reforms without which accession negotiations cannot be considered credible.

In August 2025, Ukraine's Parliament registered Bill No. 13597. It represents a renewed attempt to modernise Ukrainian legislation on combating discrimination and hate crimes after the earlier Bill No. 5488, which was never adopted.

Nearly a year after its registration, the bill remains under committee review. At the same time, it has already been included on Parliament's agenda and designated as a European integration bill. The Parliamentary Committee on Ukraine's Integration into the EU concluded that the draft law is consistent with Ukraine's international obligations in the field of European integration and is intended to implement the rule-of-law roadmap.

The bill's central idea is that the state should distinguish between less serious discriminatory acts and more serious offenses such as attacks, threats and incitement to violence. Each level of misconduct should have its own appropriate legal response.

The very introduction of Bill No. 13597 is an important step. However, for European integration, it is not enough simply to add the right words to legal codes. The law must be clear, understandable and practical to enforce.

Institutional reforms also deserve special attention. Real protection requires not only new legal provisions but also training for investigators and prosecutors, systematic recording of hate crimes, analysis of complaints concerning police action or inaction and clear support mechanisms for victims.

This is the difference between imitation and genuine reform.