Working for the occupier: economic activity and employment in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine from the perspective of Ukrainian collaboration legislation and international humanitarian law

Executive summary. Economic interactions of residents of the territories of Ukraine occupied by Russia with the occupation military and civilian authorities and directly with the Russian state are an inevitable and essential part of life under occupation. This brief concerns the relations which require exchange or provision, rather than mere receipt by civilians in the TOT, of goods, services or benefits, and are (or could be) commercial in nature. Depending on individual circumstances, these activities – usually related to employment or other ways of income generation – might at the same time: make a critical difference to personal and family safety and capacity to survive; be permissible under international humanitarian law; qualify as a crime of collaboration by Ukrainian authorities. The brief analyses the role of Ukrainian collaboration laws and judicial practice, in particular regarding the assessment of voluntariness of collaboration and of circumstances excluding criminal responsibility. It takes stock of the critique of the legislation and its implementation voiced by Ukrainian and international human rights defenders and legal experts and considers the role of the collaboration laws in structuring the governance and lived realities of the occupation.

1. Interaction of local population with the enemy in the territory under belligerent occupation as approached in international humanitarian law

International humanitarian law (IHL) regulates interactions of residents of an occupied territory with the occupying power via imposing obligations on and granting rights to the latter. These include, per Geneva Convention IV relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War from 1949 (GC-IV), the prohibition to conscript the population of an occupied territory into the occupier’s armed forces as well as the power to compel it into work that guarantees continued provision of essential services required to sustain civilian life and satisfies the needs of the army of occupation. The GC-IV is binding for state parties and applies in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine (TOT) irrespectively of the annexations thereof into the Russian Federation. Russian state and occupation authorities therefore possess wide discretion in requiring civilians in the TOT to work in the provision of public utilities, healthcare, education, social services, clothing, transportation, repairing and maintenance of infrastructures (but not in activities aiding the conduct of military operations), so long as they guarantee fair remuneration and work conditions (for the relevant provisions of GC-IV and other related IHL norms, see Table 1).

The occupier’s entitlement to force civilians into certain work activities meets the prohibition of forced and compulsory labour in international human rights law, which does not cease to apply during armed conflict. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) suggests that the compulsion allowed under the GC-IV might fall under the exception of “[a]ny service exacted in cases of emergency or calamity threatening the life or well-being of the community” from the scope of the prohibition as per Article 8.3.c(iii) of the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.^[1] A similar provision in Article 2.2.d. of the 1930 Forced Labour Convention specifies that an “emergency” may amount to “an event of war” (although no guidance exists on whether an occupying power may invoke this exception in an occupied territory).^[2] Notably, although energy infrastructures constitute essential public services, the International Labour Organisation has described as forced labour the coercion exercised by Russian occupation authorities against the employees of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in the occupied town of Enerhodar who in 2022 were stopped from leaving the TOT and/or forced to return to their workplaces and sign contracts with the Russian state atomic energy corporation Rosatom.^[3]

In addition to permitting a certain degree of coercion towards civilians under occupation, IHL allows the occupying power to enforce provisions essential “to maintain the orderly government of the territory, and to ensure the security” of the occupier, its representatives and property, and of infrastructures they use (Article 64 GC-IV). Although civilians under occupation do not owe allegiance to the occupying power, the latter may criminalise resistance to the occupation by punishing residents for actions intended to harm the occupying authorities (Article 68 GC-IV). In contrast, IHL does not regulate voluntary relations of residents of an occupied territory with the occupying power. ^[4] Therefore, the legal figure of collaboration(ism)^[5] – broadly defined as willing assistance to the enemy during armed conflict, and in more restrictively referring to cooperation of civilians in an occupied territory with the occupying forces – can only exist in domestic jurisdictions. Moreover, it is not common for collaboration to be criminalised in countries that are neither in active conflict nor have part of their territory under enemy occupation, other than under provisions for high treason or espionage. Historically, context- and time-specific provisions punishing collaborators were put in place upon the restoration of territorial control over occupied territories. In addition to the silence of international law on the matter, the ad hoc character of laws on collaboration and the sense of urgency in administering transitional justice mean there are scarcely any “best” or “good” practices for contemporary national legislators to draw upon.^[6]

Unlike international law, domestic regulations target individual collaborators from among own citizens who reside(d) in an occupied territory, rather than citizens of the occupying power. Actions of Russian citizens in the TOT that do not constitute armed aggression, war crimes or crimes against humanity (which might be the case of systematic practices of forced labour or military recruitment of civilians), cannot be prosecuted under Ukrainian legislation.^[7] This means that the brunt of legal responsibility for surviving amidst the uncertainty and violence of the Russian occupation is borne by Ukrainian civilians.

1. Economic activity and collaboration in the TOT as seen by the Ukrainian State

In Ukraine, the legislative debate on the need to establish criminal responsibility for collaboration emerged after the Russian occupation of Crimea and parts of Donetska and Luhanska oblasts in 2014.^[8] In the following years, participation in or assistance to illegal armed groups in the TOT of Donetska and Luhanska oblasts was prosecuted under the provision on the creation of illegal paramilitary organisations or as terrorism offences; collaboration with the occupation/Russian administration, military and security institutions, whether in Crimea or in Donetska and Luhanska oblast, could be also prosecuted as high treason. None of the legislative proposals to separately criminalise collaboration had progressed until the immediate aftermath of the full-scale Russian invasion, when a draft law on collaborationist activity, by then registered in the Parliament for just over a year, was speedily adopted after barely any discussion.^[9]

In turn, the status of a temporarily occupied territory as a legal category was established in the Law of Ukraine no 1207-VII from 15 April 2014 On Ensuring Civil Rights and Freedoms, and the Legal Regime on the Temporarily Occupied Territory of Ukraine.^[10] The law confirms the commitment of the Ukrainian State to guaranteeing the rights, freedoms and interests of physical and juridical persons in the TOT, including their economic and property rights. While legislative attempts to regulate economic activities in the TOT since 2014 were widely regarded as inconsistent, impracticable and discriminatory towards residents of Crimea,^[11] the Law of Ukraine no 1618-IX from 1 July 2021, enforced in November of the same year, made conducting lawful business activity in the TOT has been practically impossible. Enterprises and self-employed persons registered in the TOT must re-register on the non-occupied territory in order to continue operating; business licenses are invalid in the TOT; the transfer of goods and services (except for personal belongings and humanitarian aid) and financial operations between the TOT and the rest of Ukraine are prohibited.^[12] The law also suspended legal responsibility for employers who delay or refuse payment to employees due to reasons beyond their control – creating potential loopholes for labour exploitation.

Still, conducting economic activity and being employed in the TOT did not trigger criminal responsibility until 15 March 2022, when the dedicated law on collaboration, enumerated in Article 111-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (CCU), entered into force. Alongside it, a set of provisions adopted between March and April 2022 created a body of collaboration offences: including high treason committed during martial law (Article 111 CCU, part 2), abetting the aggressor-state (Article 111-2 CCU), sharing information on the movement of Ukrainian weapons or military with the state committing military aggression (Article 114-2 CCU, part 3), and recognition, justification, glorification or negation of Russian military aggression against Ukraine (Article 436-2).^[13]

Tables 1 and 2 summarise the practices that may fall under Ukrainian collaboration laws, and their assessment under IHL. Table 3 provides a list of penal sanctions under respective penal provisions.

Table 1. Activities qualified as collaboration under Ukrainian law and their assessment in IHL

Action/practice	Ukrainian law	International humanitarian law
Continuing to perform one’s functions as a public official or judge	Was possible without amounting to collaboration in the early weeks of the occupation and before Ukrainian public administrations, other authorities and judicial institutions were shut down and made to reopen under the Russian/DNR/LNR flag	The occupying power may not alter the status, or apply sanctions, coercion or discrimination to public officials or judges who abstain from working “for reasons of conscience”; but it can remove them from their posts (Article 54 GC-IV)
Employment by authorities of the occupying power	Prosecuted as collaboration if voluntary: not in organisational, managerial or administrative functions (Article 111-1 CCU, part 2) in organisational, managerial or administrative, including elective roles (Article 111-1 CCU, part 5) a position in illegal judicial or security authorities established in the TOT (Article 111-1 CCU, part 7)	Measures aimed at creating unemployment or restricting opportunities in the occupied territory in order to induce residents to work for the occupying power are prohibited (Article 52 GC-IV) Residents may be compelled to perform work necessary for: the needs of the army of occupation (billeting, fodder, transport, transportation and telecommunication infrastructure)[14] public utility services the feeding, sheltering, clothing, transportation or health of the population of the occupied country Conditions: carried out only in the occupied territory with fair wages and proportionate to capacity following local laws if possible, at usual place of employment Residents of the occupied territory may not be compelled to: undertake work involving them in military operations (includes strategic (building bases), operational (fortifications) and tactical (digging trenches, delivering ammunition and supplies to the front line) activities) [15] use force to secure the installations where they are performing compulsory labour (Article 51 GC-IV)
Employment at educational institutions	Prosecuted as collaboration (Article 111-1 CCU, part 3): Propaganda at educational institutions with the aim to facilitate armed aggression against Ukraine, establishment of temporary occupation of Ukrainian territory, avoidance of responsibility for armed aggression Acts aimed at introducing the educational standards of the aggressor-state (should not include activities limited to teaching by the already introduced standards)[16] Voluntary occupation of administrative positions at educational institutions may be prosecuted under Article 111-1 CCU, part 5	Cooperation of “the national and local authorities” with the occupying power expected in order to “facilitate the proper working of all institutions devoted to the care and education of children” (Article 50 GC-IV)
Employment at medical establishments	No specific provisions Instances of employment in administrative positions by the occupation authorities at medical establishments or healthcare institutions have been convicted under Article 111-1 CCU, both part 2 and part 5[17]	Medical staff of all categories must be allowed to carry out their duties in the occupied territory Cooperation of “the national and local authorities, the medical and hospital establishments and services” with the occupying power expected to guarantee public health and hygiene (Article 56 GC-IV) The occupying power may compel services of medical personnel to combat epidemics and perform other work to ensure health of the population of the occupied territory[18] Nobody shall be punished for carrying out medical activities compatible with medical ethics, regardless of who benefits from them (Article 16, Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the protection of victims of international armed conflicts (Protocol I), 1977)
Organising, conducting, actively participating in political events	Prosecuted as collaboration (Article 111-1 CCU, part 6) “Political events” encompass congresses, meetings, demonstrations, conferences, roundtables etc	No specific provisions
Mobilisation into and assistance to the Russian army, auxiliary forces, organisations of a military or semi-military character	Prosecuted as collaboration if voluntary: participation in illegal armed or paramilitary organisations created in the TOT and/or armed formations of the aggressor state provision of assistance to these in conducting armed actions against the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other armed formations created according to the laws of Ukraine, voluntary formations created for protecting independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine (Article 111-1 CCU, part 7) Prosecuted as high treason: defecting to the side of the enemy during an armed conflict (Article 111) Prosecuted as “abetting the aggressor-state” when committed by a Ukrainian citizen, a foreigner or a stateless person except for citizens of the aggressor-state: intentional actions aimed at aiding the aggressor state, its armed formations and/or occupational administration, in order to harm Ukraine via implementation or support of their decisions and/or actions (Article 111-2 CCU)	The occupying power is prohibited to: use moral or physical coercion, in particular to obtain information from the person or third parties (Article 31, GC-IV); a more specific prohibition to force residents to provide information on the army of the other belligerent or its means of defence (Article 44, Convention (IV) respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land and its annex: Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague Regulations), 1907) forcibly recruit residents into its armed forces, military or semi-military organisations (Article 51 GC-IV)[19] resort to propaganda or pressure to secure voluntary enlistment (Article 51 GC-IV) Granting residents of the occupied territory the nationality of the occupying power may not be used in order to circumvent the prohibition to enlist[20]
Providing resources and services to the occupying power	Prosecuted as collaboration: transfer of material resources to illegal armed or militarised formations created in the temporary OT and/or armed or militarised formations of the aggressor-state conducting economic activities in interaction with the aggressor-state, illegal authorities created in the occupied territory, including the by occupation administration (Article 111-1 CCU, part 4) Prosecuted as abetting the aggressor-state: voluntary collection, preparation and/or transfer of material or other resources to representatives of aggressor state, its armed formations and/or occupational administration (Article 111-2 CCU) Prosecuted as high treason: spying providing a foreign state, organisation or their representatives assistance in conducting subversive activities against Ukraine (Article 111 CCU)	The occupying power is allowed to conduct requisitions “for the needs of the army of occupation” where these do not “involve the inhabitants in the obligation of taking part in military operations against their own country” (Article 52 Hague Regulations) Requisition of food and medical supplies is only allowed “for use by the occupation forces and administration personnel, and then only if the requirements of the civilian population have been taken into account”; fair value must be paid for requisitioned goods (Article 55 GC-IV) Materials and stores of civilian hospitals cannot be requisitioned if needed for the civilian population (Article 57 GC-IV)

Table 2. Informational activities in favour of Russia

Under Article 111-1 CCU (collaboration)	Under Article 436-2 CCU (justification, recognition, negation, glorification of Russian armed aggression)	Under Article 114-2 CCU (non-sanctioned sharing of information on weapons and Ukrainian military)
public (i.e. shared to an undefined number of recipients) negation of the facts of armed aggression against Ukraine and the temporary occupation of the Ukrainian territory (part 1) public calls to support decisions or actions of the “aggressor-state”, its armed formations and/or occupation administrations, collaborate with these, and deny recognition of the sovereignty of Ukraine over the TOT (part 1) propaganda at educational institutions (part 3); differs from part 1 in that it should be coordinated with the occupation/Russian authorities, have an agreed programme, possibly materials[21] informational activity in cooperation with and in the favour of the aggressor-state and/or occupation administration; creation, collection, receipt, storage, use and sharing of relevant information in cooperation with the aggressor-state and/or occupation administration, aimed at supporting the aggressor-state, its occupation administration or armed formations and/or at evasion of its responsibility for armed aggression against Ukraine, without the signs of high treason (part 6)	Justification, recognition as rightful, negation of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, glorification of its participants (encompassing members of illegal armed formations and groups created, subordinate to, directed and financed by Russia, and representatives of the occupation administration), including via presenting Russian aggression as an internal civil conflict (part 1) producing and sharing materials containing the claims justifying, recognising as rightful or negating the armed aggression (part)	Sharing information on the direction and transportation of weapons, armaments and ammunition into and within Ukraine, or on the relocation, movement or dislocation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine or other legal military units, which enables to identify them on the ground; if such information has not been openly published by relevant authorities, during martial law or state of emergency; and has been committed upon prior agreement by a group of people or with self-serving motives, or to provide such information to a state committing armed aggression against Ukraine, its representatives, or other illegal armed formations, or if it has led to severe consequences, and where there are no signs of high treason or espionage (part 3)

Table 3. Sanctions for collaboration under Ukrainian criminal law

Article in CCU	Legal basis	Sanction
Article 111 (high treason)	Last amended by Law no 2113-IX from 3 March 2022	Imprisonment for 12 to 15 years with or without confiscation of property (part 1), or if committed during martial law – 15 years or life imprisonment with confiscation of property (part 2) No criminal responsibility if the person did not commit the acts commissioned by and voluntarily informed state authorities about the task.
Article 111-1 (collaboration)	Law no 2108-IX from 3 March 2022	Part 1: professional incapacitation (deprivation of the right to hold certain positions or engage in certain activities) for 10 to 15 years Part 2: professional incapacitation for 10 to 15 years with or without the confiscation of property Part 3: correctional works for up to 2 years or detention for up to 6 months, or imprisonment for up to 3 years with professional incapacitation for 10 to 15 years Part 4: fine of up to 10 000 untaxed minimum incomes or imprisonment for 3 to 5 years with professional incapacitation for 10 to 15 years and with confiscation of property Part 5: imprisonment for 5 to 10 years with professional incapacitation for 10 to 15 years and with or without confiscation of property Part 6: imprisonment for 10 to 12 years with professional incapacitation for 10 to 15 years and with or without confiscation of property Part 7: imprisonment for 12 to 15 years with professional incapacitation for 10 to 15 years and with or without confiscation of property Part 8: if the actions or decision-making in parts 5-7 have led the death of people or other serious consequences – imprisonment for 15 years or life imprisonment with professional incapacitation for 10 to 15 years with or without confiscation of property
Article 111-2 (abetting the aggressor-state)	Law no 2198-IX from 14 April 2022	Imprisonment of 10 to 12 years with professional incapacitation for 10 to 15 and with or without confiscation of property
Article 114-2 (sharing information on ammunition or army)	Law no 2160-IX from 24 March 2022, as amended by Law no 2178-IX from 1 April 2022	Part 3: imprisonment of 8 to 12 years
Article 436-2 (justification, recognition as rightful, negation, glorification of the participants of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine)	Law no 2110-IX from 3 March 2022	Part 1: correctional works for up to 2 years or detention for up to 6 months, or imprisonment for up to 3 years Part 2: restriction of liberty or imprisonment for up to 5 years with or without confiscation of property; when committed by a person in their capacity as a public official, or repeatedly, or by an organised group, or using mass media – imprisonment of 5 to 8 years with or without confiscation of property

1. Ukrainian collaboration laws: design flaws and implementation challenges

The implementation of the collaboration laws has been under public scrutiny ever since their adoption. In this regard, access to judgements and other judicial decisions adopted by Ukrainian judiciary bodies is provided by the Unified State Registry of Judicial Decisions.^[22] As of July 2026, the registry returns over 4 000 judgements in collaboration cases (under Article 111-1 CCU), in addition to over 900 judgements on abetting the aggressor-state (Article 111-2 CCU), which are open to the public and have been interpreted by legal practitioners, researchers, human rights defenders, international organisations and journalists. In particular, the Ukrainian human rights organisation ZMINA has conducted comprehensive monitoring and analysis of the implementation of the collaboration legislation throughout 2022-2025, releasing findings in regular reports on the current and longer-term trends in the judicial practice.^[23] Other organisations to have inquired into the issue include the Media Initiative for Human Rights, Kharkiv Human Rights Group, Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, Human Rights Watch and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, among others.

While prevention – deterring Ukrainian citizens from collaborating with the enemy at the onset of the 2022 invasion and occupation – was considered the key objective of the emergency legislation, the passage of time and the consolidation of the judicial practice highlight long-term implications for residents of the TOT and their relationship with the Ukrainian State.^[24] The extensive body of critique of the collaboration legislation and its enforcement encompasses the following key points:

• imprecise terminology and ambiguity on the conditions and circumstances of criminal responsibility, violating the principle of legal certainty;
• potentially criminalising any work activity in the TOT, thus limiting the residents’ right to work and capacity to sustain themselves and their families;
• collisions between the provisions impeding consistent qualification of offences;
• retroactive application of certain provisions and disregard for the limited access of residents of the TOT to information, especially to websites of Ukrainian authorities, affecting their awareness of Ukrainian legislative developments;
• disproportionate sanctions and discrepancies in sentencing practices among first-instance courts;
• focus on low-level offenders rather than high-profile collaborators;
• reliance on investigations and judicial proceedings in absentia (without the participation of the defendant) and a formalistic approach to the right of the accused whose residence is unknown or in the TOT, to be informed of and able to participate in the proceedings;
• possibility for minors aged 16-18 to be prosecuted under article 111-1 CCU, including part 7 on participation in and assistance to the armed formations of the occupier – especially concerning considering systemic militarisation of children in the TOT;
• prolonged periods of pretrial detention;
• extremely low acquittal rates;
• not following the norms of IHL, in particular the need to sustain civilian life under occupation and the duty of the occupying power to take respective measures;
• a failure to acknowledge the particularities of establishing voluntariness of actions or inaction in the conditions of occupation and to focus on the intent to harm, as well as the lacking reference to voluntariness from parts 3 and 4 of Article 111-1 CCU.^[25]

Out of the above, the insufficient focus on proving the voluntariness of actions of the accused and the non-compliance of the provisions and/or their implementation with IHL most eloquently demonstrate the discrepancy between the realities of coexistence of local population of the TOT with the occupation authorities and the juridical instruments designed to tackle these realities and mitigate their consequences.

• 1. Presumption of voluntariness and disregard for structural coercion

Collaboration presumes voluntary and purposeful interaction with the enemy-occupier. However, IHL itself enables the employment of “reluctant collaborators” by conditioning the prohibition of coercion towards occupied civilians and giving little consideration to the oppression characterising armed conflict and occupation.^[26] Equally, when prescribing cooperation between the occupying power and local residents, the IHL framework does not account for the politicisation and weaponisation of essential services and public goods by the occupation authorities, which may turn service providers into “instruments of coercion, indoctrination, or symbolic domination” of the occupier while subjecting them to a mix of coercion and co-optation strategies. ^[27]

Although ideological and opportunistic motives certainly drive collaboration, especially for individuals appointed to higher executive and managerial roles, it is widely recognised that residents of the TOT act and take decisions in a uniquely coercive environment.^[28] Individual decisions to collaborate are made under the impact of multiple factors, such as immediate personal and family members’ security, financial and other material resources, age and health, as well as feasible chances to leave and resettle outside the TOT. In certain professions and work settings, these are compounded by conflicting sociopsychological dynamics – including group loyalty and normative and informational group pressure, respect for authority, dedication to local community, moral disengagement and diffusion of responsibility.^[29] Moreover, either option – to remain loyal to the Ukrainian state or to accept the Russian rule – implies sanctions from Russian or Ukrainian authorities.^[30] Even where a person is aware of Ukrainian collaboration laws, the perceived immediacy, irremediability and severity of the penalty may influence the choice.

While only a small share of persons prosecuted before 2022 for having served as militants or informants for the Russian or Russian-affiliated armed formations in the TOT reported having acted out of necessity arising from the loss of usual income, been recruited into fighting as punishment, or forced to provide information via threats to the lives of family members, such testimonies presented a lost opportunity for the Ukrainian judiciary to build a framework fit to balance national security interests with the lived experiences of citizens who had been through the Russian occupation.^[31] The Ukrainian law provides for the general defence of extreme necessity where an action or inaction is taken to avert an immediate danger (Article 39 CCU), as well as of physical coercion preventing the accused from controlling their actions (Article 40 CCU). The impact of physical coercion of lesser degree and of psychological coercion is to be evaluated in conjunction with the extreme necessity clause.

The two provisions offer very limited grounds for the exclusion of criminal responsibility and are used in collaboration proceedings with no regard for different multiple ways in which coercion and danger are structured, perceived and experienced in the TOT.^[32] First instance and appeal courts have disregarded defendants’ claims to have been coerced into accepting offers of employment or requests of services through detention, intimidation by the Russian military, and threats to oneself and their family dependants, as well as due to economic necessity.^[33] Furthermore, even though voluntariness constitutes a feature of the offence under part 5 of Article 111-1 CCU (as well as parts 1, 2, 6 and 7 of the same and of Article 111-2 CCU) and therefore must be proven by the prosecution, a recent judgement on employment in an organisational role at an administrative body created by the occupation authorities concluded that “the absence of voluntariness (i.e. performing actions under coercion) can only exclude criminal responsibility” if the defence of extreme necessity or physical or psychological coercion applies.^[34] This approach implies that any action unlikely to pass the test under Articles 39 and 40 CCU could be automatically assessed as voluntary – effectively precluding acquittals, especially in investigations completed in absentia.

At the same time, the scale of known repression unleashed by the Russian military and civil authorities against Ukrainians in the TOT after the 2022 invasion might have implicitly affected the assessment of individuals’ capacity to abstain from or refuse collaboration. On the one hand, evidence of resistance to the offers of collaboration by representatives of local authorities, educators and journalists, especially in the early months of the occupation, and of detention, abuse and torture they experienced for their “pro-Ukrainian” position at the hands of the occupiers,^[35] might make it more difficult to disprove the guilt of those who acceded to offers or requests to work for/with the occupation/Russian authorities. On the other hand, patently voluntary participation of some Ukrainian citizens in perpetrating these crimes while entrusted with power on behalf of the occupation authorities provides examples of conscious and harmful collaboration that do warrant stringent penalties.^[36]

The longer the occupation lasts, the less realistic it is to assume that residents would be able to avoid engagement with the Russian authorities in an environment where Ukrainian legal, administrative, economic and social structures are being actively and violently dismantled.^[37] Yet, instead of prioritising the capacity of Ukrainian citizens to survive safely through the occupation, national courts have assessed continuous residence in the TOT as a sign of voluntariness of the actions of the accused and their loyalty to the occupier.^[38]

• 1. Work exacted under IHL: irrelevance of consent

A potentially different scenario plays out where work or services have been exacted by the occupier within the limits of IHL: the issue of voluntariness or illegality of such employment should not be raised at all. While the norms governing the occupied territory apply in the first place to the occupying power, the state whose territory is under occupation is expected to respect the prerogatives of the occupier regarding the maintenance of civilian life when assessing its citizens’ relations with the occupying authorities. Hence, Ukrainian and international legal experts concur that collaboration or support of actions directed at the compliance by the aggressor-state of its obligations under IHL should not be prosecuted.^[39]

As admitted in a separate opinion of a judge of the Cassation Criminal Court of the Supreme Court of Ukraine on the decision from 1 December 2025 in case no 638/18926/23, the capacity of the occupying power to compel civilians to work makes their consent irrelevant, whereas placing residents of the TOT at risk of destitution due the vast scope of activities prosecutable as collaboration might constitute a war crime.^[40] These concerns were present as early as in 2022, when a bill listing activities that, in the virtue of constituting essential services or otherwise guaranteeing the maintenance of civilian life under occupation, should not amount to collaboration, was prepared by the Ministry of Reintegration and the State Security Service (SBU).^[41]

Nevertheless, the above mentioned decision of the Cassation Criminal Court concluded that the voluntariness of the defendant’s employment in a position giving him a “controlling influence” over other citizens in activities essential to their survival (collecting wood for heating) during the occupation of his village had been proven beyond doubt, which discarded the applicability of GC-IV.^[42] This reflects wider judicial practice: in December 2025, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights drew attention to the convictions “for actions that could lawfully be compelled by the occupying Power under IHL, as work necessary to satisfy the needs of the population”, noting that this approach placed residents of the TOT “in an impossible position”.^[43]

Criminalisation of any voluntary cooperation with the enemy might nonetheless correspond to a more restrictive view on the occupied country’s obligations – namely, that IHL does not prevent states from prosecuting suspected collaborators even where it allows the occupying authority to engage them, provided that such prosecutions adhere to fundamental guarantees such as humane treatment and the right to fair trial.^[44] Here, Ukraine’s performance is equally questionable: not only due to the incoherences in the laws and their application (including and in particular during trials in absentia, making up the bulk of cases), but also, as noted by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, in light of the reported instances of enforced disappearances and illegal detention, abuse, ill treatment and torture prior to trial.^[45]

The 2022 legislative proposal by the Ministry of Reintegration was retracted in 2025.^[46] Indeed, despite a high number of legislative initiatives suggesting amendments to the 2022 collaboration laws, none have been approved as of July 2026. Human rights defenders have attributed the inaction to the lack of political will and the public sensitivity of the issue, which the Government fails to weigh against the likelihood of coming under scrutiny of international bodies, including the European Court of Human Rights.^[47] Yet even as it is assumed that the Ukrainian society demands harsh punishments for collaborators, existing anecdotal evidence and sociological surveys suggest that citizens adopt nuanced positions recognising the difference between ideological or selfish service to the occupier furthering Russian agendas, and holding on to routine jobs in the public sector as a means to sustain one’s family.^[48]

Conclusions

Despite such constraints as the lack of access to the TOT and the highly limited capacity to guarantee in-person trials, the 2022 Ukrainian collaboration laws have been extensively applied. The case law provides insights into the administration of the occupation and routine coercion applied to the population. By the same token, it attests to the failure of Ukrainian legislators and judiciary to take this coercion into account when evaluating the actions and decisions of Ukrainian citizens in the TOT, and to create safeguards against double penalisation.

The particularity of collaboration as a social, economic and political reality in the TOT is that it can only be approached from the perspective of the Ukrainian authorities, law enforcement and civil society – it is this perspective on the Russian administration of the occupied territories that qualifies otherwise everyday activities as reprehensible or criminal. Yet legal framings have ramifications for all residents of TOT, affecting not only the prospects for reintegration of the TOT in case of de-occupation, but also their decisions to leave the occupation for the territory controlled by the Ukrainian government, as well as immediate safety. In addition to the objective shortcomings of the legislation, the lack of clarity (and possible disinformation) on what interactions between the occupying authorities and the population are criminalised under Ukrainian law might further shrink the choices available to people considering relocation from the TOT. It is vital that the Ukrainian legislative, legislative and judiciary authorities reconsider the prevailing approach – not only, and not primarily, to comply with IHL, but to avoid providing the occupation regime with additional instruments of ensuring coercive compliance of Ukrainians living under the Russian occupation.