Situation of human rights in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, including the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol - Report of the Secretary-General (A/HRC/56/69) (Advance unedited version)

Human Rights Council

Fifty-sixth session

18 June–12 July 2024

Agenda items 2 and 10

Annual report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and reports of the Office of the High Commissioner and the Secretary-General

Technical assistance and capacity-building

I. Introduction

1. The present interim report of the Secretary-General on the situation of human rights in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, including the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, is submitted pursuant to General Assembly resolution 78/221, in which the Assembly requested the Secretary-General to submit an interim report to the Human Rights Council at its fifty-sixth session. The same resolution requested the Secretary-General to submit a report on the progress made in the implementation of the resolution at the seventy-ninth session of the General Assembly.
2. In its resolutions 68/262, ES-11/1, ES-11/2 and ES-11/4, the General Assembly affirmed its commitment to the territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders. In the present report, and in line with relevant Assembly resolution, including resolution 78/221, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol (“Crimea”), and certain areas of the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Ukraine, temporarily controlled or occupied by the Russian Federation, are referred to as “temporarily controlled or occupied territories of Ukraine.” The organs and officials of the Russian Federation established in temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine are referred to as “occupying authorities of the Russian Federation.”
3. While the General Assembly in past resolutions has requested the Secretary-General to report on the human rights situation in Crimea, resolution 78/221 for the first time requests the Secretary-General to also cover other parts of Ukraine temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. This report has therefore been divided into two sections. The first section covers the human rights situation in areas of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions of Ukraine temporarily controlled or occupied by the Russian Federation. Since this is the first time that the situation in these areas has been included in this report, the first section covers the period from 24 February 2022 until 31 December 2023. The second section covers the human rights situation in Crimea. Since previous reports of the Secretary-General have covered the period from 2014 to 30 June 2023, this section of the report in relation to Crimea covers the period from 1 July 2023 to 31 December 2023.