Recovering Passports and Hope: East SOS Lawyers Provided 383 Document Recovery Services in 2025

Document restoration is a vital part of the work of East SOS lawyers. During evacuations from dangerous areas, people often lose their documents at the most critical moments of their lives. They may be destroyed by fires caused by russian shelling, left behind during urgent departures, or never issued at all.

In 2025, the Foundation’s legal team provided 383 document recovery services, including 239 passport restorations.

During evacuation, documents become especially crucial: they allow people to apply for financial assistance, exercise their basic rights, and access state services. East SOS lawyers support evacuees in restoring passports and other documents at transit centers immediately after arrival, during short stops along evacuation routes, in temporary shelters, and at Zatyshno Space, a space for psychosocial and legal support.

Alina Steblianko, a lawyer at East SOS, works with particularly complex cases of document restoration, including passports lost due to hostilities before evacuation or destroyed during shelling. She explains that passports issued after 2014 in territories controlled by Ukraine can be restored by contacting the relevant unit of the State Migration Service.

In some cases, people obtained Ukrainian passports in territories that became temporarily occupied after 2014. Often, individuals possess only a soviet-era passport, which may also have been lost. In such situations, the document restoration process becomes significantly more complex, requiring lawyers to carry out additional work to recover even minimal identifying information. This may include searching for the series and number of a previous passport, the issuing authority, and the date of issuance. Additional supporting materials are often required, such as other documents containing a photograph of the person, any available data from earlier passports, completion of a special questionnaire, or an identification procedure confirmed by relatives either in person or online. When restoring soviet-era passports, the Foundation’s human rights defenders are required to pursue legal proceedings in court.

As one of the lawyers explains:

“There are cases when adults arrive from temporarily occupied territories with only a Ukrainian birth certificate. To obtain a Ukrainian passport, they must undergo an identification procedure accompanied by a parent or close relative who holds a Ukrainian passport. If relatives remain in the temporarily occupied territory, this procedure can be conducted using online communication tools. In another case, a person had a birth certificate but no official record of their birth. We had to go to court to restore it.”

One of the factors that significantly complicates document recovery is the absence of social connections in a person’s life. Alina Steblianko recalls a case involving a man who required an identification procedure but had no contact with relatives or anyone else.

“I truly love helping people, even in the most difficult situations. I do my best to find any clues and restore essential documents for a person. And I feel genuinely frustrated when it’s not possible,” the lawyer shares.

The document restoration process is often carried out in close cooperation with other members of the East SOS team, including psychologists and social workers who support people with limited mobility throughout the process.

These and many other services provided by the Foundation help restore hope and enable people to rebuild their lives without barriers.

You can receive free legal assistance by calling our hotline: 0 800 332 614 (Monday–Saturday, 8 AM–6 PM).

We also provide consultations via messengers:
• Viber: +38 (099) 710 48 72
• Telegram: +38 (096) 108 60 48

You can receive free offline counseling at the psychosocial and legal support space “Zatyshno Space”:

• Vinnytsia
  19 Vasyl Poryk Street (room 72)
  +38 (095) 877 26 36
  
• Zaporizhzhia
  3 Pivdenoukrainsk Street (Myr Street stop)
  +38 (097) 021 41 53
  
• Mykolaiv
  79-A Marko Kropyvnytskyi Street
  +38 (099) 790 00 70
  
• Kharkiv
  11 Hohol Street
  +38 (097) 384 97 35

The Foundation’s lawyers provide legal consultations at the office in Dnipro every Tuesday from 10 AM to 5 PM. The exact address will be shared after scheduling an appointment by phone: +38 (063) 288 67 88 (Vladyslav).

Earlier, we shared the story of Serhii, whose passport was restored by the East SOS team.