Draft Law of Ukraine No. 13452, dated 04.07.2025, proposes a number of amendments to the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offences (CUAO) and the Criminal Code of Ukraine (CCU) — including clarification of the powers of the military road safety inspectorate, time limits for bringing administrative charges, jurisdiction over administrative offences committed by service members, reservists, and conscripts during training, and increased sanctions under Articles 412 and 425 of the CCU, as well as the introduction of the concept of "substantial harm" as an aggravating factor under Article 412 CCU.
At the same time, the draft law expands the list of offences for which mitigating circumstances or suspended sentences may not be applied. Article 402 CCU ("Insubordination") has been added to this list. The draft also eliminates the possibility of releasing individuals from administrative liability on grounds of minor significance in cases involving negligent damage to military property, violations of combat duty rules, consumption of alcohol, and other offences under Chapter 13-B of the CUAO.
This narrowing of procedural guarantees strips courts of the flexibility to consider the specific circumstances of each case, undermines the principle of individualised sentencing, and effectively equates minor disciplinary infractions with serious military crimes — risking disproportionate verdicts, deepening distrust of the justice system among service members, and generating additional social tensions within military units.
It bears recalling that in 2022, Law No. 8271 was adopted, amending Articles 69 and 75 of the Criminal Code. At that time, courts were stripped of the ability to apply mitigating circumstances or suspended sentences in a range of cases involving offences against the established order of military service. Those amendments were criticised by both service members and human rights organisations. A petition to the President of Ukraine calling for a veto of the bill gathered the required number of signatures on the very first day of its publication. The primary arguments in favour of a veto were violations of the right to defence and fair trial, as well as the risk of significant overcrowding in the national penitentiary system.
Principle Human Rights Center for the Military emphasises that increasing penalties has no deterrent effect — it only places service members in a worse legal position than civilians. This is confirmed by open data from the Office of the Prosecutor General, which show a steady rise in military criminal proceedings regardless of the severity of punishment: in 2023, 16,316 cases of unauthorised abandonment of a military unit were registered; in 2024, that number rose to 62,505; and in January–July 2025 alone, 107,999 such cases were already recorded. The same trend applies to other military offences for which criminal liability was increased. The 2022 amendments thus failed to achieve their stated purpose and instead deepened the legal inequality between military personnel and civilians.
Maintaining law and order and military discipline is undeniably essential for the effective functioning of the security and defence forces during armed aggression. However, formally tightening penalties does not improve discipline. On the contrary — it undermines service members' trust in the legal system, creates a sense of injustice, and may produce the opposite effect: making it harder to maintain real order and combat resilience within units.
In light of this, we call on Members of the Verkhovna Rada to remove from Draft Law No. 13452 the provisions prohibiting the application of Articles 69 and 75 of the CCU in criminal cases, and Article 22 of the CUAO in military administrative cases — and to ensure equal legal guarantees for all citizens.