Having Hope for the Future: East SOS Helped a Man Restore His Passport
Serhii is a resident of the Polohy community in the Zaporizhzhia region. Back in 1994, he lost his Soviet-style passport along with other personal documents. After that, he continued living in his village without obtaining a Ukrainian passport, earning his living by helping neighbors and fellow villagers with household chores.
After the start of the full-scale invasion, Serhii relocated to the outskirts of Zaporizhzhia. However, without a passport, he was unable to obtain an internally displaced person (IDP) certificate, apply for IDP accommodation assistance, or access social benefits. In addition, the relocated Polohy territorial community could not provide him with financial support due to the lack of identification documents.
One of the people Serhii had helped in the past was a fellow villager. Her daughter, Nataliia, learned about his situation and decided to step in.
“I asked him why he hadn’t applied for a passport, and I couldn’t even imagine how difficult it could be,” she says.
Nataliia adds that although Serhii was well known in the village, this alone was not enough to help him restore his documents.
At first, the community tried to help Serhii obtain a passport on their own, but without success. To restore his documents, it was necessary to go through a court procedure to confirm his permanent residence in Ukraine as of 1991. That is when they turned to East SOS, and our specialists stepped in to support the case.
“The court proceedings were not easy. We had to find additional documentary evidence confirming that the man worked as a stoker at a school in the Chernihiv region back in 1991,” said Oleh Bordiuh, a lawyer at East SOS.
In addition to the legal complexity of the case, there was another serious challenge. In the fall, as a result of enemy shelling, an area near the migration service office where Serhii’s passport application was being processed was hit. The building was damaged, which significantly slowed down the review process. Despite these obstacles, Serhii eventually received a positive court decision, and in December 2025, he finally obtained a passport of a citizen of Ukraine. This document opens access to state social benefits and financial assistance.
East SOS lawyers receive numerous requests related to the restoration of passports and other personal documents. In many cases, such assistance requires far more than submitting an application or contacting the relevant authority – it involves complex legal procedures and sustained support. Having at least a basic set of documents is, without doubt, a crucial step toward a future in which everyone can fully exercise their rights and access services and benefits as citizens.
Legal assistance in this case was provided within the framework of the project “Comprehensive Humanitarian Assistance to Conflict-Affected Ukrainians and Third-Country Nationals in Ukraine, Poland, Romania, and Moldova”, with the support of Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe and funding from the German Federal Foreign Office.
From March 1 to October 31, East SOS lawyers provided 22,102 legal services as part of a project aimed at supporting civilians affected by russian aggression.
