Draft Law No. 15331, registered in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, proposes to incorporate the cultural dimension of the crime of genocide into Ukrainian criminal law. The Raphael Lemkin Society contributed to the development of the legal concept behind the draft law and advocated for a broader understanding of genocide — not only as the physical destruction of people, but also as the destruction of the cultural foundations that enable a nation to exist.
On June 15, 2026, Ukrainian MPs Mykyta Poturaiev, Yevheniia Kravchuk, and other members of parliament registered Draft Law No. 15331 in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. In total, 33 MPs joined in supporting the draft law.
The draft law proposes to amend Article 442 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine and establish criminal liability for the destruction, damage, appropriation, or systematic denial of access to elements of cultural heritage, language, education, religious practices, traditions, historical memory, or cultural institutions, where such acts are aimed at eliminating the cultural identity of a group as a condition or means of its physical or social destruction.
The introduction of this draft law is, among other things, the result of the long-term expert work of the Raphael Lemkin Society, which has consistently advocated for the legal recognition of the cultural dimension of genocide under Ukrainian criminal law. At the expert level, the Society’s team contributed to the development of the legal concept behind the draft law and argued for the need to reflect the cultural dimension among the constituent elements of the crime of genocide in Ukraine’s Criminal Code. The concept is grounded in the ideas of Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term “genocide.”
“Raphael Lemkin understood genocide not only as the physical extermination of people. For him, the destruction of language, culture, education, religion, memory, and institutions was part of a broader plan to destroy a group as such. Today, Ukraine is facing precisely this kind of attack: Russia is trying to destroy not only Ukrainian cities, but also the very foundations of Ukrainian identity. That is why Ukrainian legislation must call this crime by its proper name,” said Daryna Pidhorna, legal expert and analyst at the Raphael Lemkin Society.
One stage of this work was a roundtable held by the Society on May 1, 2026, in Dnipro, with the participation of parliamentarians, representatives of the government, prosecutorial authorities, civil society, and the media. Participants discussed Russia’s use of culture, history, and law as instruments of war, as well as the need to strengthen national legislation.
Since the beginning of Russia’s war against Ukraine, Russia has systematically attacked Ukrainian culture: destroying museums, libraries, theaters, churches, and architectural monuments; removing museum collections from temporarily occupied territories; suppressing Ukrainian language and education; imposing Russian historical narratives; and attempting to replace the Ukrainian cultural environment with a Russian one.
Draft Law No. 15331 provides for punishment for such acts in the form of imprisonment for a term of 10 to 15 years and, in the gravest cases, life imprisonment. Public incitement to commit such acts would be punishable by imprisonment for a term of 3 to 7 years.
The key purpose of these amendments is not only to establish liability, but also to create an effective mechanism for preventing the crime of genocide. To do so, the state must properly qualify acts that have already been committed. Russia is systematically destroying Ukrainian culture, language, education, memory, and institutions, using their destruction as an instrument of war against the Ukrainian nation. Such acts must therefore receive proper legal qualification — as part of a genocidal policy, rather than being described through other legal categories that fail to reflect their essence.
“Culture is not a collateral victim of this war. It is its target. When the aggressor state destroys museums, bans a language, rewrites history, removes cultural property, and dismantles institutions of memory, it attacks the ability of a people to exist as a distinct community. Ukraine must create legal tools that correspond to the scale of this crime,” said Anastasiia Oleksii, Executive Director of the Raphael Lemkin Society.
The team of the Raphael Lemkin Society has prepared a separate explanation of why the proposed amendments to the Criminal Code of Ukraine are necessary to ensure proper accountability for the crime of genocide in Ukraine.
As of June 22, 2026, the draft law is under consideration by the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Law Enforcement.
The Society’s advocacy and expert work on the development of legislative amendments concerning the cultural dimension of genocide was carried out with grant support from the European Endowment for Democracy (EED).