Cruelty to animals in Ukraine ceases to be the topic of social networks and random videos, this phenomenon increasingly becomes the subject of consideration in criminal proceedings. What until recently remained within the limits of domestic aggression or was perceived as petty hooliganism is increasingly moving into the legal sphere. Sentences are appearing in the courts that involve real prison terms, and the wording of “cruel treatment” is turning into a qualification with legal consequences. Even during the war, Ukrainian society did not become more sensitive. Despite the constant presence of death, loss and violence, people did not beat, poison or hang animals less, but on the contrary, the cases became more frequent.
Criminal proceedings for cruelty to animals
Over ten years, 1,599 criminal proceedings were opened in Ukraine for cruelty to animals. And despite the fact that some of these cases ended in real sentences and imprisonment, the general picture resembles a permanent formula of impunity — probation, sometimes even without public resonance, almost always without public condemnation.
This year, there are already 178 such cases, which is more than in the whole of 2023, when 175 proceedings were opened. Despite the war, mass migration and the fact that the state is supposedly focused on protecting life, abuse of animals does not disappear. And although the number of proceedings is increasing, the real inevitability of punishment remains doubtful. The peak of activity fell in 2018, when new fines came into effect – that’s when the number of cases increased sharply. In 2021, the legislation was strengthened even more: Article 299 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine allowed up to eight years of imprisonment for animal cruelty, especially if the crime was committed by a group of people or in public. But with the start of a full-scale war, the statistics fell again. Not because animals have become less mutilated, it’s just that they stopped recording it systematically, they were not investigated as a priority.
Data from the General Prosecutor’s Office give a clear picture of the dynamics: from 70 cases in 2015 to 222 in 2020. In 2021 — 203. Then, after February 24, 2022, a decline: 150 in 2022, 175 in 2023. And already 178 — only for the first half of 2024. These are not just numbers. These are cases of real violence — documented, open, and often public. However, even when cases go to court, they often end the same way. According to data for 2024, 32 cases were brought to court — that is, only 18% of all open proceedings. For comparison, in 2022–2023, this indicator reached 24%. That is, every fourth case then received a chance for a verdict. Now – only one in five, and even these cases rarely end in imprisonment.
Real examples can be found in the court register. So, in Lviv Oblast, a man was sentenced to five years in prison for beating a dog to death with a bat. A similar sentence was handed down in Dnipropetrovsk region, where a man during a robbery hit an alabai named “Imir” with a machete knife – the court sentenced him to three years of imprisonment. However, these are exceptions, because much more often the accused receive a suspended sentence. In Odesa, a man stabbed a homeless dog twice in the neck with a knife – the animal died. The court sentenced him to five years of probation. Conditionally, this is a formal punishment, but in fact it is a lack of responsibility. Such verdicts send a clear signal: abusing an animal is not fatal in the legal sense, the main thing is to do it without cameras, not with a child nearby and not too publicly.
Article 299 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine provides for a wide range of liability: from fines to eight years of imprisonment. It clearly states that cruelty is not only physical mutilation or killing of an animal, but also harassment of one animal, long-term abuse, leaving it in conditions that doom it to suffering. However, even with such definitions and an expanded evidence base, which includes camera footage, photos, and witness statements, most cases do not even reach prosecution.
Cruelty and rescue: real stories of injured animals
In the last 11 months only in Cherkasy region documented 13 cases of cruelty to animals. Law enforcement officers recorded brutally beaten, thrown, poisoned or tied four-legged animals. In some cases, criminal proceedings were opened, in others, administrative reports were drawn up. But the most important thing is that all these are not dry paragraphs, but mutilated destinies. The spokeswoman of the regional police department, Zoya Vovk, reported on the scale and nature of the offenses. According to her, during the year, two criminal proceedings were opened in the region, and another 163 protocols were opened for violation of the rules for keeping pets (Article 154 of the Code of Administrative Offenses). Compared to last year, when six criminal cases and more than two hundred administrative records were registered, the changes are not drastic, but the trend persists.
One of the most shocking cases happened near the village of Geronymivka, where a local resident accidentally came across a bag in the forest when she decided to go for mushrooms. Instead of porcini mushrooms, she found seven newborn puppies tied up without access to air and left to die just under the trees. Turning to the shelter did not help, because there are no places and children are not accepted there. So the woman herself feeds them every hour and looks for a new home for each one.
Volunteers found a dog named Tina in a garbage container in Cherkasy. She was tied and packed in such a way that she could not get out on her own. Now Tina has only three legs, but a family appeared that accepted her, despite all the scars of the past. Traces of violence remained on Tina’s body: scars, an amputated paw, bare skin in places where there were probably stitches. But Tina’s behavior is unexpectedly trusting. She reaches out to people, flatters herself, tolerates even excessive love. Her story serves as an illustration of how an animal, having survived betrayal, is capable of more than many people.
Zoo volunteer Yana Tyabut takes care of more than fifty cats in Cherkasy. Each of them has a bitter experience of violence: someone was poisoned, someone was kicked out on the street because of damaged furniture, someone was thrown out after years of living in the family. One of her cats, nicknamed Bilyash, lived with people for four years, and then simply became useless. The other, Pango, is the only survivor of the poisoned offspring. Yana notes that violence is not always connected with beatings. Often it is the same indifference, ignoring, leaving to fend for oneself. There are dozens of such stories in her experience. It is very difficult to restore the trust of an animal that has survived betrayal. You need to learn her reactions, understand the triggers and never push. Here, everything turns out to be like a person who has undergone trauma.
Unfortunately, such cases happen often. In Cherkasy, one of the local men publicly beat his own dog right on the playground. The law enforcement officers managed to establish the identity of the violator and open criminal proceedings against him. To what extent it will reach the court is still an open question. In another case at Smila, an animal was kept on a short chain without sufficient food until it began to show signs of exhaustion. And only the intervention of volunteers changed the situation.
In Ukraine, there is still a lack of awareness that an animal should not be perceived as a thing. Often, owners simply do not understand that they are creating conditions for the animal that are tantamount to abuse. There are cases of deliberate violence, when the animal is specially tortured. But there is also the unconscious: they kicked her out into the cold because she bit the leg of the sofa, or they simply do not feed her because she “ate yesterday”. All this indicates a lack of empathy in society. But it is possible to change the situation, and education will help with this. Therefore, animal rights activists have been working with schools and kindergartens for several years, explaining how to treat animals, why they should be respected and why it is part of culture, not entertainment or a burden.
It should be understood that cases of violence against animals cannot be perceived as just a marginal section in police statistics, because it is an indicator of how much we as a society are ready to recognize an animal as a being with rights, emotions and needs. And as long as some people beat, shoot or throw their pets in the garbage just because they did something wrong, such a society can hardly be considered complete. So, real change begins with someone who happens to be nearby at a crucial moment near a bag in the forest, near a garbage can, near a frightened kitten on the street, and does not remain an indifferent observer.
How war reveals the dark side of human nature
The war became the litmus test that showed how we behave in the most acute moments of life. And while some take dogs out in backpacks and hold cats in their arms in bomb shelters, others simply tie their animals to the fence and drive away without looking, leaving the animals to fend for themselves. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion in Ukraine, the number of abandoned animals has increased. And we are not talking about strays, but about domestic ones, who only yesterday had a name, a bowl of food and a photo in the phone of their “owners”. Dogs on chains, which were thrown in yards “until better times”. Cats released “at large” in frozen basements of high-rise buildings. Birds in cages that they did not have time or did not want to pick up. And all these are not “brutal exceptions”, but an increasingly frequent norm, because people “have it so hard” and “not like animals”.
However, the problem is not only that this attitude leads to the death of animals. The problem is also that humanity is dying in the people themselves. In the cities that come under shelling, volunteers every week record abandoned animals, which study empty yards, caress for someone else’s hands, because their own will no longer be there. And yes, it is not always about evil people, but often about indifferent ones. But it is from indifference that the worst begins. Volunteers admit: the wave of abandoned animals during martial law is one of the most acute problems in the field of animal protection in all years. The shelters are overcrowded, there is not enough feed, and it is increasingly difficult to find the finances to keep the animals. And the number of “leftovers” grows after each new evacuation, shelling or relocation. Most of such animals do not show aggression and are not “problematic”.
These are ordinary pets who ended up on the street because they were no longer considered family members. And such an attitude is a direct sentence to society, which shows its true face in extreme conditions. After all, a society that easily abandons those whom it tamed cannot claim to be humane. We talk a lot about morality, patriotism, heroism, but when an abandoned dog howls on a leash under your house, and you pass by, then heroism ends and indifference begins, and with it the decay of values develops.
Nevertheless, the system begins to work little by little, albeit slowly and sometimes not very efficiently. For example, in February 2025, a special training for law enforcement officers was held, dedicated to the recording and qualification of crimes against animals. It became part of a wider campaign to raise the professional level of people who depend on whether a case will be opened or lost in a bureaucratic trap.
The changes we see in 2025 didn’t happen in a vacuum. They were preceded by systematic work throughout 2024. Platforms for appeals, legal education of citizens, ready-made application templates have formed a new landscape, where the animal is no longer a silent victim, and the person is not just a powerless witness. This is the foundation on which something more than just a “register of cases” can appear. We are watching how, with the development of such practice, Ukraine is taking a step towards civilized responsibility.
The fight against cruelty to animals in the world — and what Ukraine has not done so far
If you still think that the topic of animal protection is interesting only for eco-activists, then scroll through the news from Britain or the USA. There, the abuse of an animal is not just an “ethical issue. Abroad, such acts become a direct ticket to the courtroom, and then to the prison cell, while in Ukraine the court is still hesitating whether to give a suspended sentence for the fact that a person killed a dog in front of children. We are not the first in this marathon. Other countries have already passed the stage where outrage on social networks weighs more than the judge’s signature. And this is what they have it turned out
In Germany, an animal is not perceived as a toy with which you can do anything, but a full-fledged subject of law. The Germans are very clear: if you hit an animal, you will be sent to prison, depriving you of your freedom for up to three years. But the point is not even in terms. In Germany, the animal is protected by law and it cannot be simply returned to the “owner” if he has made it hell. Animal rights activists there have a voice that is listened to, and their reports are accepted as evidence in the case.
In 2021, Great Britain passed a law that made animal cruelty a real crime. There, criminals are deprived of their liberty for up to 5 years, without any “buts”. In addition to punishment, those who like to loose their hands are also deprived of the right to keep animals for life.
Although the United States is perceived throughout the world as a country of contrasts, there is a seriousness in matters of animal protection that we lack. In some states, there are entire animal cops (police that are exclusively involved in animal cruelty – ed.). In 2019, the PACT law was passed in the USA, which applies throughout the country. According to this law, anyone who is capable of cruelty to animals is potentially dangerous to society, and therefore should be imprisoned for up to 7 years.
Australia is also not on ceremony. There, bullying is punishable by up to five years in prison or a fine that can easily exceed USD 100,000. And in Australia, there is a system of mandatory reporting in a good sense: if a veterinarian sees suspicious injuries in an animal, he is obliged to notify the police. If he does not do this, he can also be punished for aiding and abetting a crime.
In Ukraine, they are still debating whether it is possible to remove an animal without the consent of the sadistic owner. Sometimes investigators don’t know how to qualify beatings, and judges don’t know whether it shocks society enough to give a suspended sentence. It is likely that what we lack is not laws, but serious practice with a database of sadists, we need judges who are not afraid to give a real term and investigators who see the animal as a victim, not an extra piece of paper. A country that pays too high a price for humanity and at the same time for some reason is afraid to give a real punishment to someone who killed a dog on the street gives the impression of bitter dissonance. While all over the world cruelty to animals acts as a marker of potential aggression towards humans, we somehow still hesitate and debate.
So cruelty no longer goes unnoticed. And although so far Ukrainian Themis is taking only uncertain steps in this direction, society has already stopped putting up with the fact that animals are killed and no one is responsible for it. This year, Ukrainians finally really entered the phase when the law began to work. The question now is not how many cases will be opened, but how many of them will end with fair verdicts. And the main thing is whether Ukrainians will have enough internal measure to stop perceiving violence as the norm. Because no court will stop what still does not seem like a crime to someone. The law can punish, but only society can learn not to cause pain.
