State of the World's Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2014 - Ukraine

Ukraine's location between Russia and the European Union has had a profound impact on its internal politics, in particular relations between the ethnic Ukrainian majority and the country's ethnic Russians, who at around 17 per cent of the population comprise its largest minority group. However, an additional 15 per cent of ethnic Ukrainians consider Russian their first language. Since independence, Ukraine's politics have been strongly divided along these ethnic and linguistic lines. The implications of this divide became especially apparent following the spread of protests against the government of President Viktor Yanukovych following his abandonment of a planned EU trade deal in favour of closer ties with Russia. Following mass demonstrations in Kiev, tensions rose between the government and protesters, which led to sustained violence in early 2014, with hundreds killed or injured. On 21 February 2014, Yanukovych was removed from office.

While the primary factors behind the uprising were not ethnic but focused on the corruption of the incumbent government and its close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the fault lines within the country reflect entrenched political divisions that are strongly associated with ethnicity. This aspect was sharpened in late February 2014 when pro-Russian militia seized buildings in Crimea, allegedly with Russian support. In March, following a controversial referendum in the region, Crimea was formally annexed as Russian territory. In the run-up to the referendum, Crimean Tatars became increasingly exposed to threats and physical aggression, including from paramilitary organizations. This vulnerability is reinforced by their long-standing marginalization in the country and the uncertain legal status of many Tatars as Formerly Deported People (FDP, referring to the mass deportations in the 1940s by the Soviet government under Joseph Stalin).

Ukraine's status as a major migration hub has also resulted in rising xenophobia against migrants. Asians, Africans and Caucasians are especially vulnerable to bias-motivated attacks. Roma communities have also been targeted with violence, including an arson attack on a settlement in the Darnitskii area of Kiev on 13 June 2013, resulting in 40 people being made homeless.

Just three cases of hate crime were recorded by the police in Ukraine, along with two prosecutions in 2012, according to a 2013 ODIHR report. However, civil society organizations recorded many more incidents involving cases of physical assault, a number resulting in serious injury, stabbings and the use of other weapons. The majority of victims were of African descent. A number of physical assaults against Jewish victims were also reported, one in which a rabbi was attacked with a pepper spray, along with some arson attacks – one attempted against a synagogue – and graffiti, damage and desecration of gravestones and Holocaust memorials. While no official data on anti-Muslim crimes was reported to ODIHR, civil society organizations reported a case of grave desecration and an arson attack against a mosque.

Despite official recognition of hate crime as a serious issue that needs special attention at the ministerial level, at the level of policing victims still face discrimination, harassment and obstruction in opening criminal investigation. Another problem with hate crime investigations in Ukraine has been the prosecution of victims for self-defence. In at least three cases since 2008, people who were pushed to use force against perpetrators ended up facing criminal charges when the offenders were set free.

It is also clear that in some cases the authorities have failed to respond adequately to hate crimes. The majority of reported cases are investigated and forwarded to courts as ordinary crimes without specific mention of the bias motivation. Inadequacies in the investigation of racist hate crime were illuminated by the European Court of Human Rights 2012 ruling in Fedorchenko and Lozenko v. Ukraine. The case involved an arson attack against a Roma family in 2001 which claimed the lives of five of the family members, and in which it was alleged that a police major participated. The Court rebuked the Ukrainian authorities for their failure to investigate the racist motives of the crime (see case study).

The effects of Ukraine's recent political instability could have troubling implications for its minorities. In February 2014, one of the first acts of the new parliament was to vote to annul the 2012 law on minority languages, which allowed Russian to be treated as an official second language in parts of the country with a significant Russian-speaking population. This also had implications for other linguistic minorities and indigenous peoples in the country, such as Crimean Tatars, whose language has been classified by UNESCO as severely endangered, as well as Krymchak, Karaites, Bulgarian, Hungarian and Romanian minorities in the country. The recently appointed interim President, Aleksandr Turchinov, subsequently stated that he would not enact the annulment. In the context of rising tensions between Ukraine and its Russian neighbour, the importance of curbing hate speech and hate crime against minorities – already a serious and poorly recognized challenge – could become even more pressing in 2014.