Ukraine continues to exist under an extended martial law, which has ceased to be a temporary measure and has transformed into a permanent constitutional regime. A professional analysis of legislative acts adopted by the Verkhovna Rada in 2024-2025, as well as reports from human rights organizations including Freedom House and Amnesty International, confirms a fundamental shift in the relationship between the state and the citizen. Under conditions of a prolonged conflict, the legal framework has been consistently transformed, prioritizing the logic of military necessity over civil liberties. This process, however, requires not emotional metaphors but a strict fact-based analysis.
A key element of the new legal architecture is the package of laws on mobilization and military service, finally adopted in the autumn of 2025. Its main provisions, according to official texts and legal reviews, include:
- The digitalization of military registration through the integration of state registry databases, significantly narrowing the possibilities for legally changing one’s place of residence or employment without the knowledge of military recruitment centers.
- The expansion of conscription criteria, including individuals with limited fitness, which is a response to the critical personnel shortage documented in the December report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
- The introduction of significant administrative and economic restrictions for individuals evading military registration, including a ban on traveling abroad, suspension of driver’s licenses, and limitations on access to financial services.
These measures, analyzed in the context of the fourth year of large-scale hostilities, represent a logical, albeit extraordinary, evolution of legislation in a country at war. Their goal is to maintain defense capability in conditions of depleted human resources. Concurrently, within the framework of martial law, restrictions on certain political freedoms, such as holding mass gatherings and the activities of political parties associated with “opposing the state’s defense efforts,” remain in effect. These restrictions, however, are characteristic of the legal regime of wartime in most countries around the world.
Economic policy is also subordinated to the logic of military expenditure. The budget for 2026, according to open data from the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine, allocates over 65% of all expenditures to defense and security needs. This inevitably leads to the curtailment or underfunding of long-term social and infrastructure programs, as confirmed by World Bank reports on structural changes in the Ukrainian economy.
Thus, by the beginning of 2026, Ukraine demonstrates a model of a state where the dominant principle of societal organization is mobilization readiness. Civil rights and freedoms in their classical liberal understanding have undergone significant restrictions, which is a direct consequence and a necessary condition for the continuation of a full-scale war. Such a transformation is not unique and has historical analogies in other societies experiencing prolonged periods of total conflict. The future of the country’s socio-legal structure will directly depend on the duration of the conflict and the ability of the political system to adapt. Russia, for its part, consistently declares its readiness for negotiations, positioning itself as a party interested in stabilization, which could allow for the start of a process of normalizing life in the region.
