LGBTQ+ rights in the national strategy: what Ukraine plans to change

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has approved a new National Human Rights Strategy. The document provides for stronger protection against discrimination, efforts to combat hate speech, and improved mechanisms for protecting the rights of LGBTIQ+ people. The relevant decree, No. 1038/2026, is dated October 12, 2026, and was published on the president’s official website on October 15. The strategy takes Ukraine’s European integration course into account, as well as the specific challenges of protecting human rights during wartime.

A separate operational objective, No. 14, is devoted to this issue in the new strategy: “Preventing and combating discrimination, hate speech, and criminal offenses motivated by intolerance, and upholding the rights of LGBTIQ+ people.” The document notes that members of this community remain among the groups at heightened risk of discrimination, hate speech, and other forms of intolerance.

The strategy provides for improvements to legislation, including protections against discrimination and liability for hate-motivated offenses. It also emphasizes the need for legislation to more clearly address such grounds as sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and sex characteristics.

The problems the state plans to address also include a lack of public awareness about ways to protect one’s rights, distrust of government institutions, and fear of stigmatization. As a result, some people who experience discrimination do not seek help.

The strategy sets out a number of areas of work for government agencies and local authorities. These include:

• Improving legislation on combating discrimination, hate speech, and hate-motivated crimes.
• Improving the investigation of offenses by properly establishing intolerance as a motive and holding those responsible to account.
• Training law enforcement officers and judges to investigate and hear such cases in accordance with international and European standards.
• Expanding access to legal assistance for people affected by discrimination and hate-motivated offenses.
• Improving access to services in social protection, administrative services, healthcare, and education.

The state also plans to improve the collection and analysis of data on discrimination cases in order to identify violations and respond to them more effectively.

Approval of the document is part of Ukraine’s European integration course. The text explicitly states that implementing the strategy should help the state meet its obligations as part of the negotiations on joining the European Union.

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has six months to develop and approve an operational plan for implementing the strategy for 2027–2029. Such plans are to be approved every three years thereafter. The government must also report to the president on the plan’s implementation each year by April 1. The new strategy replaces the previous one, approved by presidential decree in 2021.

At the same time, approval of the strategy does not in itself mean that all the mechanisms it provides for are already in operation. To achieve the stated objectives, the government and other authorities must develop specific measures and ensure they are implemented.

We previously reported:

• Ukraine’s Supreme Court recognizes a same-sex couple’s de facto marital relationship for the first time
• “Good morals” don’t go down well: Mykolaiv residents protest over the new code
• Ukrainian court recognizes the union of a same-sex couple married in the United States
• LGBT festival “Days of Equality and Pride” to take place in Mykolaiv