A lawyer in Kharkiv was left disabled after being beaten inside a territorial recruitment center, according to Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian parliament’s human-rights commissioner.
The incident occurred on March 15 last year at the territorial recruitment center in Kharkiv’s Kyivskyi district. The woman went there to provide legal assistance to a man detained by recruitment officers.
According to the ombudsman, the lawyer was denied access to her client and seriously injured. After being hospitalized, she underwent surgery, prolonged treatment and rehabilitation, and was subsequently granted Group III disability status.
The woman filed a criminal complaint, but investigators failed to identify her assailant over the course of a year. Recruitment-center employees were not questioned, and surveillance footage was not provided. Investigative steps were taken only after a court intervened.
The State Bureau of Investigation opened a separate case into possible negligence by police officers.
After a year without results from the investigation in Ukraine, the lawyer applied to the European Court of Human Rights.
Lubinets stressed that this was not the only case of physical violence against lawyers. Seventeen such incidents were recorded in 2025 and 2026. Some also involved reports of psychological pressure and threats of mobilization.
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