East SOS Joins Coalition of Human Rights Organizations in Submitting UN Report on the Rights of People Affected by russian aggression

On July 17, the Coalition of organizations working to protect the rights of those affected by armed aggression against Ukraine – including East SOS – submitted a shadow report to the UN Human Rights Council. The report provides an independent civil society assessment of Ukraine’s implementation of international recommendations on protecting people affected by the war.

The report was submitted as part of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), an international human rights review mechanism of the UN Human Rights Council. Every four and a half years, each of the 193 UN Member States reports on its human rights record, while other states assess its progress and issue recommendations. This year, Ukraine is undergoing its fourth UPR cycle.

The experts’ overall conclusion is clear: despite some positive developments, the state policy on supporting people affected by the war remains fragmented, and a number of key recommendations have yet to be implemented.

The Coalition’s report highlights several key concerns:

• No single responsible authority.
Following the dissolution of the Ministry of Reintegration in 2025, an institutional gap emerged. Its responsibilities were distributed among several government bodies, with no effective coordination between them. Some functions, including those related to transitional justice and the protection of the rights of residents of temporarily occupied territories (TOTs), have effectively fallen outside the scope of state policy altogether.

• Limited compensation mechanisms.
The existing national compensation mechanism covers only certain categories of damaged or destroyed housing. It does not extend to non-residential property or movable assets, nor to property destroyed before 24 February 2022 or located in temporarily occupied territories.

• Barriers for residents of TOTs.
Coalition organizations have documented numerous obstacles faced by people living in or displaced from temporarily occupied territories. Key barriers include the need to apply to courts to register births or deaths, the inability to rely on information contained in documents issued under occupation, difficulties faced by Ukrainian citizens without Ukrainian IDs when returning to Ukraine, and limited access to Ukrainian education for children.

• Discrimination in pension provision.
The Coalition recognizes the adoption of a new version of the relevant legislation as an important step towards a comprehensive policy covering the entire cycle from evacuation and adaptation to return and reintegration. However, discriminatory approaches to pension provision for people who have left temporarily occupied territories persist.

Based on its analysis, the Coalition recommends that the Government designate a single authority responsible for policy concerning people affected by the war, establish a comprehensive support system, introduce mechanisms for documenting non-pecuniary harm, ensure an effective compensation mechanism, and eliminate discriminatory approaches affecting displaced people and pensioners.

The full text of the submission is available below.

Recently, East SOS called on the Prime Minister of Ukraine to designate a ministry responsible for coordinating evacuation efforts.