Dmytro Yagunov: The Wartime Paradox: Torture Prosecution Effectiveness in Ukraine (2013-2025)

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The prosecution of torture in Ukraine presents a paradoxical case study in criminal justice effectiveness. Analysis of official statistics spanning thirteen years (2013-2025) reveals fundamental shifts in investigative capacity, prosecutorial commitment, and systemic dysfunction that challenge conventional assumptions about the relationship between state resources and criminal justice outcomes. Here, we examine torture police statistics across three distinct periods: the post-Euromaidan transition (2013 – 2017), the pre-war stabilisation (2018 – 2021), and the full-scale invasion period (2022 – 2025).

Police statistics on torture (Article 127 of the Criminal Code) occupy a controversial place in the analysis of the general structure of crime in Ukraine. On one hand, systematic torture by the police, prison and military officers has shaped corresponding views on torture practices in the Ukrainian society and media. The Ukrainian society has a strong view that ill-treatment by the police and prison officers is a wide-spread phenomenon. On the other one, the number of officially registered crimes of torture determines many questions concerning the latent nature of this type of crime as well as the effectiveness of investigation of torture by state agents in Ukraine which become known to the society.

Official torture crime statistics demonstrate considerable volatility across the observation period. The initial post-Euromaidan years (2013 – 2017) showed relatively modest fluctuations, with registered cases ranging from 51 to 82 annually. A dramatic inflection occurred in 2018, when registered crimes spiked to 163 cases – a 98,8% increase from the previous year. This peak was followed by a gradual decline through 2019 – 2021, with cases settling in the 79-140 range.

The onset of full-scale war in February 2022 produced an immediate statistical shock: registered torture crimes plummeted to 68 cases, the lowest level in the entire observation period. However, this proved to be a temporary nadir. The subsequent years (2023 – 2025) demonstrated a recovery pattern, with case volumes stabilizing at 94-124 cases annually – levels comparable to the pre-2018 baseline but substantially below the 2018 peak.

Additionally, the percentage of dropped criminal proceedings stimulates additional questions about the effectiveness of pre-trial investigation of tortures. The specific feature of crimes of torture is that the victim can identify a perpetrator or at least to provide the information that he or she was subjected to torture in a concrete police department or in a concrete prison.

The critical deficiency in Ukraine’s pre-war torture prosecution system becomes evident when examining conversion rates between crime registration and judicial outcomes. The Statistics reveal a systematic pattern of investigative attrition that suggests profound institutional dysfunction rather than mere resource constraints.

During the 2016 – 2021 period, only 24,3% to 45,7% of registered torture crimes resulted in criminal proceedings with identified suspects. The year 2019 represents the nadir of investigative effectiveness, with merely 24,3% of cases advancing to this preliminary stage. Even in the relatively stronger year of 2017, less than half (45,1%) of registered crimes produced suspects – a conversion rate that would be considered unacceptable in functioning criminal justice systems addressing serious human rights violations.

The attrition intensifies at the indictment stage. Between 2016 and 2021, only 15.7% to 31,7% of registered torture crimes resulted in indictments forwarded to courts. The 2019 data is particularly striking: of 140 registered torture crimes, only 22 (15,7%) reached indictment. This represents an 84,3% failure rate at converting registered crimes into prosecutorial action – a statistic indicative of near-complete systemic breakdown.

Compounding this investigative ineffectiveness, the pre-war period witnessed high rates of case abandonment. Between 2016 and 2021, 17,8% to 41,9% of proceedings were dropped. The years 2016, 2020, and 2021 were particularly problematic, with drop rates exceeding 40%. This suggests not merely investigative difficulty but a systemic pattern of initiating proceedings that prosecutors lacked the capacity, evidence, or political will to pursue to completion.

The Russian full-scale invasion produced an unexpected reversal in investigative effectiveness metrics. Despite conditions that would logically impede torture investigations – displaced populations, overwhelmed institutions, diverted resources, occupied territories – the prosecution system demonstrated marked improvement in converting registered crimes into judicial outcomes.

The year 2024 represents the highest investigative effectiveness in the entire observation period: 1) 62,9% of registered crimes resulted in proceedings with suspects (compared to 24,3 – 45,7% pre-war); 2) 46,8% reached indictment stage (compared to 15,7% – 31,7% pre-war); 3) only 19,3% of proceedings were dropped (compared to 17,8% – 41,9% pre-war).

This effectiveness improvement proved sustainable across the war period:

• average suspect identification rate: ~ 58%;
• average indictment rate: ~ 42%;
• average drop rate: ~ 23%.

These metrics represent an approximate doubling of pre-war indictment rates and a near-halving of case abandonment rates.

The wartime improvement in investigative effectiveness fundamentally challenges resource-centric explanations of criminal justice dysfunction. If investigative failure resulted primarily from insufficient resources, the wartime period – characterised by severe resource constraints – should have witnessed deteriorating rather than improving metrics. The data instead suggests that pre-war dysfunction stemmed from systemic factors largely independent of resource availability: lack of political will, inadequate prosecutorial prioritisation, tolerance for impunity, or institutional capture.

The wartime period coincided with unprecedented international attention to human rights violations in Ukraine. The establishment of numerous documentation initiatives created external accountability pressures absent in the pre-war period. This international scrutiny likely increased both the visibility costs of investigative failure and the institutional support for pursuing cases.

The improved conversion rates may partially reflect a shift from quantity to quality in case selection. Faced with overwhelming caseloads and limited capacity, prosecutors may have adopted more rigorous screening criteria, pursuing only cases with strong evidentiary foundations. This would improve conversion rates while potentially allowing weaker but nonetheless meritorious cases to go unprosecuted.

The 2022 Russian invasion fundamentally altered Ukraine’s political economy of law enforcement. Pre-war patterns of institutional tolerance for torture – rooted in authoritarian legacies, law enforcement impunity, and political interference – became politically untenable in a wartime context demanding international support and domestic legitimacy. Torture prosecution transformed from a low-priority administrative matter to a politically salient indicator of democratic commitment and rule of law.

The most significant limitation of this statistical analysis is its necessary exclusion of torture occurring in temporarily occupied territories. Russian occupation created zones of absolute impunity where torture has been extensively documented by international monitors but remains entirely absent from Ukrainian crime statistics. The registered crime figures for 2022 – 2025 therefore represent a severe undercount of actual torture incidence, capturing only cases occurring in government-controlled territory where investigative access exists.

This visibility gap has profound implications for assessing the true scale of the torture problem in Ukraine and for understanding the relationship between wartime conditions and human rights violations. The improved investigative effectiveness documented in official statistics may coexist with massively increased absolute torture incidence in territories where the Ukrainian criminal justice system cannot operate.

The statistical analysis of torture prosecution in Ukraine from 2013-2025 reveals three critical findings:

First, Ukraine’s pre-war torture prosecution system exhibited systematic dysfunction characterized by extraordinarily high attrition rates between crime registration and judicial outcomes. With indictment rates as low as 15,7% and case drop rates exceeding 40%, the system demonstrated fundamental institutional failure rather than normal investigative difficulty.

Second, the full-scale invasion paradoxically coincided with dramatic improvements in prosecutorial effectiveness, with indictment rates nearly doubling and case abandonment rates halving despite severe wartime constraints. This improvement suggests that pre-war dysfunction stemmed primarily from factors relating to political will, institutional priorities, and systemic corruption rather than technical capacity or resources.

Third, the 2022 collapse in registered cases and the ongoing inability to investigate torture in occupied territories means that official statistics severely undercount the true scale of torture during the war period. Improved investigative effectiveness in government-controlled territory coexists with zones of absolute impunity in occupied areas.

These findings have significant implications for understanding institutional reform dynamics, the political economy of criminal justice, and the complex relationship between war, state capacity, and human rights protection. They suggest that conventional assumptions about the enabling conditions for effective torture prosecution may require fundamental revision, and that crisis can, under specific circumstances, catalyze institutional improvement.

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