Editor’s Note: Beatrice Godefroy is the Europe Director with the Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC), a Washington D.C.-based non-government organization. Liza Baran is the Ukraine Country Director with CIVIC. 

Imagine that you live in one of the isolated villages located near the contact line in Eastern Ukraine. 

What would your life look like? 

Statistics show a 61% probability you would be a woman, 41% likelihood you would be over 60 years old, and 13% chance you would have a disability. It is also very likely you would be one of the six out of ten people for whom the fire and shelling in the residential blocks and near your village present the biggest safety concern. 

Based on public opinion research conducted by our organization, Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC), it is even more probable that, together with 91% of people living nearby, you would fear for your personal safety or for the safety of your family. 

Moreover, your fears would be compounded by the deterioration of the economic environment, further exacerbated by quarantine measures introduced due to the outbreak of COVID-19, which diminished access to livelihoods – especially for women, the elderly, and persons with disabilities. 

Living close to the contact line, you would know well the sound of hostilities. Knowing how to find safe places like basements would be vital to saving your life, as well as the lives of your relatives, children, and friends. 

You are no longer surprised to see people carrying weapons as you go to the local market or take your child to school. In some areas, you would expect ID checks by soldiers during an evening walk. These examples present only a fraction of the daily routine for people living near the contact line. 

Ukraine is far from being a “frozen conflict”, although a fragile truce has been holding for almost three months. There is still regular and heavy military presence along the contact line, constantly impacting civilians’ safety, security, and with that their physical and psychological well-being. 

A family of local civilians trawl through the debris of their apartment destroyed by tank fire in the city of Avdiyivka, eastern Ukraine, on Feb. 17, 2017. (Volodymyr Petrov)

Under international law, governments and their security forces hold the primary responsibility to protect civilians in conflicts. The Constitution of Ukraine reflects the same core principle. For Ukraine, the need to ensure a comprehensive system for the protection of civilians becomes evident if we look at the bigger picture. 

According to the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, at least 3,368 civilians were killed and more than 7,000 injured in Eastern Ukraine between 14 April 2014 and 30 September 2020 as a result of the ongoing conflict. 

Despite a significant drop in the number of civilian casualties in 2019, an estimated 3.4 million people still require humanitarian assistance or protection services; 56% of the people in need are women, 12% are people with disabilities.

The elderly, who experience challenges accessing state-provided healthcare and other services, account for almost one-third of people in need – the highest proportion among any humanitarian crisis worldwide. The continuing violence in the conflict-affected areas has negatively impacted the psychological well-being of those who reside there.

Almost 40% of the residents of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts have experienced trauma, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder, whereas almost eight out of ten household members near the contact line feel a threat to their lives due to clashes. 

Therefore, relevant questions to ask are – how can Ukraine reduce current and future risks to the lives of civilians caught in the armed conflict? Is there any recipe that could establish and strengthen a safe environment for them? And has there been any useful experience elsewhere in the world from which Ukraine could learn from? 

In the 1990s, the protection of civilians emerged as a concept on the global agenda. Based on international humanitarian law (IHL), it represented the world’s response to the shocking impact of armed conflicts on civilians – mutilations, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and disappearances.

The UN Security Council’s first thematic resolution (S/RES/1265) on the protection of civilians – adopted in 1999 – strongly condemned the deliberate targeting of civilians in armed conflicts and urged all parties to comply strictly with their obligations under international, humanitarian, human rights, and refugee law. 

Over the past 20 years, the international community has further crystallized mechanisms to protect civilians in armed conflicts. The European Union, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Australia, and the US – amongst others – adopted strategic policies on the issue. In 2016, at the Warsaw Summit, NATO heads of state and government endorsed a “NATO Policy for the Protection of Civilians”– an overarching policy that sets out a coherent, consistent, and integrated approach to protecting civilians in armed conflicts. 

Ukraine’s pathway to protecting civilians started in May 2014, when the Armed Forces of Ukraine initiated the Civil-Military Cooperation Directorate (CIMIC) to provide systematic support and assistance to civilians and develop measures to protect populations in frontline settlements. 

In 2018, to analyze civilian harm and help prevent casualties among civilians, the Commander of the Joint Force Operations (JFO), based on the NATO International Security Assistance Force experience, established the Civilian Casualty Tracking Provisional Group (CCTPG).

In May 2019, the UN Secretary-General report on the protection of civilians in armed conflict welcomed this effort as a good practice. Furthermore, in May 2020, the Ukraine-NATO Annual Program (ANP) for 2020, approved by the President of Ukraine, provided the establishment of a “Center of excellence on protection of civilians during armed conflicts and lawfare defense”. 

While demonstrating decent progress, Ukraine’s overall response towards better protection still leaves sizable room for improvement. First and foremost, it needs a systematic approach, guided by and based on a holistic and coherent policy developed in line with international standards. Developing the national policy framework to protect civilians became one of the primary recommendations of the UN Secretary-General to Member States. 

Since 2018, Ukraine has been “en route” to adopting a National Strategy for the protection of civilians in armed conflicts until 2030. In May and June of this year, as the document went through the public discussion initiated by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, it received warm support from the international community. On October 28, 2020, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine endorsed the National POC Strategy. As a next step, the Cabinet will submit the Strategy to the President of Ukraine for his final approval and adoption as a national policy. 

Today, the President of Ukraine is on the brink of taking meaningful action to ensure better civilian protection. The adoption and effective implementation of the Strategy is the best way to achieve this.

For the sake of civilians, it is imperative for the government to urgently finalize the approval of the National Strategy on the protection of civilians and develop an adequate implementation plan that would guide the operationalization of the policy on the ground, to ensure the best benefit for the civilian population. CIVIC will stand ready to continue supporting this process. 

A resident on May 15 shows the cellar shelter in his house in Donetsk Oblast’s Pisky, at the frontlines of Russia’s war 700 kilometers southeast of Kyiv. Few civilians have stayed in the area, which is marked by regular fighting in a war that has killed 10,000 people. (Volodymyr Petrov)

The measures contained in the draft policy will help to establish a safer and more secure environment in the conflict-affected communities, enhance the prevention of civilian harm incidents and violations of norms, as well as provide assistance to those harmed in the conflict. While the causes of civilian harm may vary, the major categories include shelling, small arms and light weapon fire, mine-related incidents or handling of explosive remnants of war, road incidents with the military, and other. 

Proactive and systematic recording and analysis of civilian harm incidents and their causes, supported by practical recommendations coming out of such analysis, will help the Armed Forces of Ukraine to better identify root causes of civilian harm incidents.

In turn, it will help prioritize civilian perspectives in the planning and execution of its operations. Moreover, the consistent application of the Strategy will empower conflict-affected communities to directly communicate and discuss their concerns with relevant authorities and participate in the design of measures related to their protection. 

The instruments of the Strategy translate these commitments into concrete actions, guiding military and other security forces’ personnel on how to protect civilians better. A hands-on 

approach to civilian harm mitigation will give Ukraine a powerful, strategic tool to credibly respond to allegations of civilian harm, especially in a context where the manipulation of information and other hybrid warfare tactics are widely used to try and fuel the tensions in Donbas and beyond. 

Along with preventing and reducing the harm resulting from the hostilities, the adoption and implementation of the National Strategy will confirm the readiness of the Ukrainian state to bear the primary responsibility to protect civilians within its territory.

The National Strategy will help to form and develop a mindset that places the protection of civilians at the center of all phases of military and security operations. It will also reinforce Ukraine’s aspirations to apply NATO and EU standards and will demonstrate concrete action to civilians in Eastern Ukraine that the government cares about them and will protect them. 

At CIVIC, we are convinced that the adoption and implementation of the National Strategy for the protection of civilians in armed conflicts is a win for all – benefiting Ukraine both by serving the government’s long-term strategic goals and protecting its citizens.