Source: Article by Oleksandr Kitral published in Ukrainian by RegioNews, February 4, 2026. French translation by Patrick Le Tréhondat. English translation by Dick Nichols
Oleksandr Kitral is a social issues investigative journalist
With the outbreak of full-scale war, the number of people with disabilities in Ukraine has risen from 2.7 million to 3.4 million. Despite the need to improve support for victims, the reality is that there are numerous obstacles to obtaining social assistance. Such an approach is unacceptable as it undermines people’s faith in the country’s future reconstruction. In this article, Oleksandr Kitral tells the story of citizens who were injured or lost their lives whilst carrying out their duties. The victims or their relatives had to fight for a long time in the courts to obtain compensation and deal with the bureaucratic arbitrariness of officials.
The court has ruled
(May 6, 2026) When an employee attempts to obtain compensation from their employer for unsuitable working conditions that led to an accident, they find themselves in a difficult situation, as the employer has the administrative and financial resources to hire qualified lawyers. But sometimes luck is on the employees’ side. This is what happened to Mykola Zakharets, a father of two young children and a resident of the village of Lenkovtsi, in the Chepetivka district of the Khmelnytsky region. Whilst working in a silo, the man fell and sustained multiple injuries. The employer promised to cover all medical costs but asked the man not to report that he had been injured at work. However, when the employer became aware of the amount of the medical costs, he went back on his promise. The manager of the grain silo had instructed Mykola Zakharets to clean the upper gallery, even though this task was not part of the worker’s duties. Whilst crossing the walkway, Mykola suddenly fell into a hole and plummeted six metres onto a concrete floor. He subsequently had to undergo several operations in regional and capital clinics, and sympathetic individuals raised funds to cover his treatment. As the employer refused to reimburse the damages and, according to Mykola Zakharets, prevented him from obtaining a copy of his employment record book and other documents necessary to claim compensation through the Social Insurance Fund of Ukraine, the man took legal action.
This was particularly so as the Ukrainian State Labour Service had recognised the accident as work-related. Subsequently, the Inter-Regional Court, followed by the Court of Appeal, established the employer’s liability, as they had employed another worker without appropriate vocational training to maintain the upper gallery walkway. The employer’s lawyer’s arguments that the victim had breached safety rules by crossing the grain silo gallery were not accepted by the judges. Ultimately, Mykola Zakharets was awarded compensation of 100,000 UAH [1,950 euros].
Today, Mykola, who has been classified as having a third-degree disability, is raising his two school-age sons on his own, whilst his eldest son is at the front. Mykola explained that gathering the necessary documents to claim insurance compensation and take legal action had taken a great deal of effort and time.
“If I’d been injured somewhere else, it would have been a different matter. But here, everyone saw that the accident happened at work. Despite that, I had to expend a lot of energy: I didn’t bring the right documents, I didn’t sign the statement correctly, witnesses were needed. It was very difficult to get justice,” the man concluded.
They challenged systemic injustice
The following example shows that the social welfare system in Ukraine is not designed to provide comprehensive support for citizens. Following the adoption of new legislation, the Social Insurance Fund was abolished with effect from 1 January 2023 (Law 2620-IX) and its powers were transferred to the Ukrainian Pension Fund. For those who have suffered an accident at work or become disabled, this has radically changed the situation, as they have been deprived of most of their benefits.
According to data from the NGO ‘National Assembly of People with Disabilities of Ukraine’, workers who have suffered an accident at work have lost their permanent home care allowance, which was compensated by the payment of half the minimum wage, coverage of the costs of spa treatment, domestic services amounting to a quarter of the minimum wage, special medical care amounting to the minimum wage, hygiene products, bed linen and underwear, footwear, free medicines, as well as allowances for supplementary food prescribed by doctors.
Refusing to accept what they consider to be an injustice on the part of lawmakers, victims of workplace accidents have banded together and begun submitting requests to various ministries, agencies and MPs. They have met on several occasions with representatives of the Ministry of Social Policy, Family and Unity of Ukraine, and have been granted the opportunity to participate in meetings of the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada committee responsible for social policy and the protection of veterans’ rights.
The organiser and leader of the group, Anna Bal, whose husband was also injured whilst working in a mine and now uses a wheelchair, believes that the authorities have treated Ukrainian victims of workplace accidents unfairly.
“Our fellow citizens work, pay taxes, contribute to the Social Insurance Fund and pay for their healthcare. If my husband had known that he was at high risk of being injured in a mine and that he would not be looked after by the state, would he have agreed to work there?” asked Anna Bal.
She emphasised that the state had committed to compensating citizens for their loss of income and to creating the conditions necessary for a normal life. Indeed, many Ukrainians who have suffered workplace accidents are classified in the first category of disability. Ultimately, the campaign bore fruit. The Cabinet of Ministers adopted several important resolutions – Nos. 438 and 947 – and amendments were made to the legislation – Ukrainian Law No. 4 158-IX – which finally made it possible to restore most of the support for victims of workplace accidents that had previously been abolished. This came about after two and a half years of active campaigning by the public. However, not all benefits have been restored and the citizens’ struggle continues.
Support that is not for everyone
One should not think that Ukraine is not taking systematic measures to support workers. Law No. 2980-IX of 20 March 2023 appears to be a truly significant initiative. Its full title is ‘Law on One-off Financial Assistance for Damage to the Life and Health of Critical Infrastructure Workers, Civil Servants and Local Officials as a Result of the Russian Federation’s Military Aggression against Ukraine’. The law stipulates that if an employee of a critical infrastructure facility has become disabled in the course of their duties, they shall receive a one-off financial payment of between 200,000 and 800,000 UAH [3,900 to 7,800 euros] (in addition to insurance benefits). In the event of death, relatives receive 1 million UAH [19,506 euros]. However, this legislation is, to say the least, not very effective.
According to estimates by Sotsialnyi Rukh, since the start of the full-scale war, hundreds of critical infrastructure employees have been killed and thousands wounded. Yet the assistance provided for under Law 2980 has been paid out in only a few hundred cases. The main reason for this is excessive bureaucracy, as the public administration is overwhelmingly refusing to pay compensation to individuals on the grounds that the company was not listed in the register of critical infrastructure. The problem is that the decision to create this register was taken by the government in April 2023, whereas many employees of strategic enterprises (water, energy, railways) that are now listed in the critical infrastructure register were killed or injured in 2022 and early 2023, i.e. before the register was created. Few of their relatives ultimately received compensation.
Among those denied compensation is Natalia Shevchenko, the widow of an employee of the municipal water and sanitation company in Izium, in the Kharkiv region. Natalia’s husband, Mikhail Shevchenko, worked as a mechanic in a garage and lost his life in the line of duty on 7 March 2022, when Russian troops entered Izium. Natalia said she was 100% certain that her family would be able to obtain compensation, but the Kharkiv region’s water and sanitation company refused to pay her any benefits.
Anatoliy Babitchev, a train driver with Ukrzaliznytsia, who had previously been awarded the national distinction ‘National Legend of Ukraine’ by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in March 2022, has also not received any compensation. Anatoliy and his wife Natalia worked tirelessly for nine days to evacuate people from Kostyantynivka, Kharkiv, Kramatorsk and Lyman, despite the shelling. On the night of 12–13 March, the train on which the couple were travelling came under fire, and Anatoliy’s wife was killed. As Anatoliy recounted, no one, neither in the public authorities nor at work, informed him of the possibility of receiving compensation. He found out by chance in February 2025 at an event organised by Sotsialnyi Rukh. As the three-year deadline for submitting the necessary documents to claim the benefits was due to expire in a few weeks, Anatoliy did not have time to gather the required documents and his family ultimately lost their entitlement to these benefits. Of course, one might argue that ignorance of the law is an individual’s problem. However, in this case, we are dealing with a social welfare system that, it seems, is not interested in providing comprehensive information to the workers concerned and their family members.
How a bureaucratic ‘misunderstanding’ deprived people of their benefits
There is another important programme in Ukraine: increased financial support for citizens who have become disabled in areas where fighting is taking place (or has taken place). The legislation grants these people the same benefits as former combatants, entitling them to higher pensions and an expanded range of social and medical support. But the problem lies in excessive bureaucracy. Last spring, a scandal erupted in Ukraine because war-related disability status was not being granted to residents of Mariupol who had been injured after 5 March 2022. According to an order from Ukraine’s Ministry of Community and Territorial Development, the ‘end of hostilities’ in the city was set for 4 March. However, fighting in Mariupol continued until 20 May. It was only after numerous media reports and public outcry that the Ministry of Development updated the date marking the end of the defence of Mariupol to 20 May.
Due to the negligence of officials, many [refugee] residents of Mariupol were ultimately unable to obtain the compensation to which they were entitled. Some even lost hope and decided to give up any attempt to seek justice. One of them was Leonid Bezkrovny, head of the paediatric orthopaedics and traumatology department at a medical facility in Mariupol. Despite the shelling and the lack of medicines, the doctor and his colleagues continued to provide medical care to the residents of the besieged city from the very start of the full-scale war. On the morning of 19 March, whilst on his way to work, the doctor came under fire, was seriously injured, and subsequently had to have a leg amputated. Leonid Bezkrovny explained that once he had recovered, he had gathered the necessary documents, with the exception of the coroner’s report proving that his injury had been caused by shrapnel. But it was precisely this document that ultimately proved an insurmountable obstacle for the doctor, who then gave up any attempt to obtain the status of a war-disabled person. Whilst in Cherkasy, Leonid Bezkrovny approached the local police to obtain the coroner’s report, but was rudely told to go to the Donetsk or Luhansk regions to sort out all his issues. His attempts with other authorities were also unsuccessful.
“I didn’t want to fight or beg. It’s clear that this status entitles you to some money and benefits. But I decided that as long as the war lasts, I’d rather devote all my energy to helping the lads at the front,” concluded Leonid Bezkrovny, and he devoted all his free time to voluntary work.
The examples cited are not merely extreme cases faced by certain Ukrainians. They reflect the grim reality of the current social welfare system, which is clearly not up to the task of meeting today’s challenges. Such an approach is unacceptable, as it undermines citizens’ trust in the state as an institution. How can anyone invest their energy in the country’s reconstruction and development, knowing that their basic needs remain unprotected? If the worst were to happen, would that person or their loved ones, like the people in the article, have to knock on every door of ministries and agencies, and take legal action to obtain what is rightfully theirs under the law? At a time when motivated individuals are the main driving force behind the country’s reconstruction and development, the entire state system should focus on supporting this ‘resource’.