Martial law in Ukraine

Based on Wikipedia: Martial law in Ukraine

When War Suspends Normal Life

Since February 24, 2022, Ukraine has existed in a state that most democracies have never experienced in modern times: continuous martial law. Every ninety days, the Ukrainian parliament votes to extend it. Every ninety days, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signs the renewal. As of late 2025, there is no end in sight.

But what does martial law actually mean for the twenty-seven million people who still live in Ukraine? And how did a legal framework designed for temporary emergencies become the new normal for an entire nation?

The Legal Architecture of Emergency

Martial law is essentially a transfer of power. In peacetime, civilian authorities run the government, courts adjudicate disputes, and citizens enjoy their full constitutional rights. Under martial law, the military gains expanded authority, certain rights can be restricted, and the normal rhythms of democratic life pause.

Ukraine built its current martial law framework in 2015, when President Petro Poroshenko pushed through legislation after Russia's annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of fighting in the eastern Donbas region. The law wasn't created from scratch—an earlier version had existed since 2000, signed by President Leonid Kuchma—but the 2015 overhaul was designed for a new and more dangerous reality.

The legislation specifies exactly what changes when martial law takes effect. Public holidays become working days. The government can restrict movement, commandeer resources, and limit certain freedoms. Perhaps most significantly, elections cannot be held.

That last provision has become one of the most consequential aspects of Ukraine's current situation.

Democracy on Hold

Ukraine's constitution extends the authority of the Verkhovna Rada—the national parliament—when martial law is in effect. The 450 members elected in 2019 remain in office until the first session of a newly elected parliament after martial law ends. This isn't a power grab; it's a constitutional mechanism designed to prevent the chaos of elections during active combat.

The practical implications are profound. The parliamentary elections scheduled for 2023 never happened. The presidential election set for March 31, 2024, didn't take place either. President Zelenskyy, whose five-year term technically ended in May 2024, continues to govern under the constitutional framework that extends authority during wartime.

This creates a genuine democratic dilemma. On one hand, holding elections while millions of citizens are displaced, territories are occupied, and missiles strike cities daily would be logistically impossible and potentially dangerous. On the other hand, a democracy that cannot hold elections is, by definition, operating outside its normal constitutional order.

The European Commission examined this tension in 2023 and concluded that the restrictions were "temporary and proportional to the situation." But as martial law extends year after year, the word "temporary" becomes increasingly difficult to define.

The Dress Rehearsal: Martial Law in 2018

Before the full-scale invasion, Ukraine briefly experimented with martial law under far less dire circumstances. The trigger was a naval confrontation in the Kerch Strait on November 25, 2018.

Russian forces had seized three Ukrainian naval vessels attempting to pass from the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov through the narrow strait that separates Crimea from the Russian mainland. Twenty-four Ukrainian sailors were captured. It was a dramatic escalation, but nothing like full-scale war.

President Poroshenko's initial response was sweeping: a decree imposing martial law across all of Ukraine for sixty days. Parliament pushed back. After five hours of debate, lawmakers approved a significantly scaled-down version—thirty days, covering only ten regions along the Russian border, the Moldovan border near the breakaway region of Transnistria (where Russian troops are stationed as so-called peacekeepers), and the coastlines of the Black Sea and Sea of Azov.

Even this limited martial law included notable restrictions. Ukraine banned Russian men between sixteen and sixty years old from entering the country, citing concerns about Russia forming "private armies" on Ukrainian soil. According to border officials, 1,650 Russian citizens were turned away during the thirty-day period.

The timing raised eyebrows. Poroshenko was running for reelection, and his poll numbers were dismal. Critics accused him of manufacturing a crisis—or at least exploiting one—to boost his political standing or potentially delay elections. Others argued he had acted too late, pointing out that far more serious military incidents had occurred since 2014 without triggering martial law.

The martial law expired after thirty days. Poroshenko lost his reelection bid to Zelenskyy a few months later. For most Ukrainians, the episode seemed like an anomaly, a brief taste of emergency powers that would soon be forgotten.

They would learn otherwise.

February 24, 2022: Everything Changes

When Russian missiles began striking Ukrainian cities before dawn on February 24, 2022, President Zelenskyy addressed the nation just before seven in the morning. He announced martial law immediately, and the Verkhovna Rada approved it the same day.

This time, there was no parliamentary debate about scope or duration. The emergency was real and existential.

One of the first and most consequential measures: all men between eighteen and sixty years old were prohibited from leaving the country as Ukraine began general mobilization of its reserve forces. This wasn't the limited travel ban of 2018. This was a fundamental restriction on the right to leave, affecting millions of Ukrainian men who now found themselves bound to their country by law.

That prohibition remains in effect. As of mid-2023, the State Border Guard Service confirmed that the ban on male border-crossing continued. While there are exceptions—certain categories of disability, single fathers of young children, and other hardship cases—the basic rule has not changed. Ukrainian men of military age cannot leave.

Life Under Martial Law

Two days after the invasion began, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko—the former heavyweight boxing champion—imposed a curfew on the capital. From five in the evening until eight in the morning, residents were ordered to stay indoors. The explicit purpose was to expose Russian subversives; anyone found on the streets during curfew hours would be assumed to be an enemy operative.

The curfew lifted after just two days, once Ukrainian forces had secured the city against the initial Russian assault. But it illustrated how quickly normal life could transform under martial law.

Other changes proved more lasting. On March 20, Zelenskyy signed a decree merging all national television channels into a single platform called "United News." The stated rationale was military necessity—ensuring consistent messaging during wartime and preventing Russian disinformation from fragmenting public understanding of the conflict.

That same day, he suspended eleven opposition political parties, citing their alleged ties to the Russian government. The largest was Opposition Platform—For Life, which held more seats in parliament than any party except Zelenskyy's own Servant of the People. The party had long advocated for closer ties with Russia and had opposed Ukraine's westward orientation.

Whether these measures represent prudent wartime precautions or troubling restrictions on democratic pluralism depends largely on one's perspective. The Ukrainian government argues that parties advocating for accommodation with an invading enemy cannot be permitted to operate freely during an existential war. Critics worry about the precedent of banning political opposition, even under extreme circumstances.

The Ninety-Day Cycle

Since May 2022, Ukraine's martial law has operated on a rolling ninety-day renewal cycle. The Verkhovna Rada votes, the president signs, and the clock restarts. It has become a routine legislative exercise, almost bureaucratic in its regularity.

The votes are not controversial within Ukraine. With Russian missiles still striking cities and significant portions of Ukrainian territory still occupied, few politicians argue that martial law should end. The debate is not whether to continue emergency measures, but how long the emergency will last.

In July 2024, parliament extended martial law through November. In October, they extended it through February 2025. In January 2025, they pushed it to May. Then to August. Most recently, in October 2025, they extended it through February 2026.

Each extension carries the same provisions: travel restrictions for military-age men, suspended elections, expanded government authority. Each extension represents another three months of abnormal constitutional order.

What Martial Law Is Not

It's worth distinguishing what Ukraine's martial law does and doesn't entail. This is not military dictatorship. The parliament continues to meet and legislate. Courts continue to function. The press, while operating under wartime constraints, continues to report. Political debate continues, even if some parties are banned.

Martial law in Ukraine looks nothing like the martial law imposed by military juntas in Latin America or Asia during the Cold War, where generals seized power, dissolved legislatures, and ruled by decree. Ukraine's civilian government remains in control, with the military subordinate to elected leadership.

It's also different from the "state of emergency" declarations common in Western democracies during crises like natural disasters or pandemics. Those typically involve temporary expansions of executive authority but don't suspend elections or restrict the right to leave the country.

Ukraine's martial law occupies a middle ground: a constitutional framework for genuine existential emergency, applied to a genuine existential emergency, but extended far longer than any of its designers likely anticipated.

The Human Cost of Necessary Restrictions

Every policy choice during wartime involves tradeoffs. The ban on men leaving the country ensures that Ukraine has the manpower to sustain its defense. Without it, millions of military-age men would likely have left for safety in Europe, hollowing out the armed forces and potentially dooming the country's resistance.

But the policy also means that families have been separated for years. Men who might have escaped with their wives and children instead remained behind. Some have died. Others live with the knowledge that their ability to leave their own country depends on the war's end—an end that remains invisible on the horizon.

The suspended elections mean that Ukraine's leaders govern without fresh democratic mandates. Whatever legitimacy Zelenskyy earned in his 2019 landslide victory has been extended by constitutional provision rather than renewed by popular vote. He remains broadly popular within Ukraine, but popularity without elections is not the same as democratic accountability.

The banned political parties, whatever their ties to Russia, represented voters who chose them. Silencing those parties silences those voters' political expression, even if the parties' positions were odious to most Ukrainians.

Looking Forward

The most recent renewal extends martial law through early February 2026. President Zelenskyy has submitted draft legislation that would push it further, through November 2025—though subsequent extensions will surely follow if the war continues.

The end of martial law requires the end of the war, or at least a ceasefire stable enough to restore normal constitutional order. Until then, Ukraine exists in a state of permanent emergency, its democracy preserved in constitutional theory but suspended in daily practice.

When martial law finally ends—whether in months or years—Ukraine will face the immense challenge of holding elections in a traumatized, partially destroyed, and possibly still partially occupied country. Millions of citizens have fled abroad; will they vote? Territories may still be contested; will they be represented? Politicians who have governed without electoral accountability will face voters for the first time in years; how will they be judged?

These are questions for a future that remains uncertain. For now, every ninety days, the Verkhovna Rada votes, the president signs, and Ukraine's extraordinary wartime normal continues.

The Broader Context

Ukraine's experience with martial law offers lessons for democracies everywhere about how constitutional systems respond to genuine existential threats. The country has managed to maintain civilian control, legislative function, and a degree of political pluralism even while suspending elections and restricting fundamental freedoms.

Whether this represents a model for democratic resilience or a cautionary tale about emergency powers will depend largely on what comes next. If Ukraine emerges from the war and successfully transitions back to normal constitutional order, historians may view its martial law period as a necessary pause—a democracy holding its breath until it could safely exhale.

If the emergency extends indefinitely, or if the restrictions prove difficult to unwind, the assessment will be more complicated. Emergency powers have a way of outlasting the emergencies that justify them. The habits of wartime governance can be difficult to abandon even after the war ends.

For now, Ukraine continues to fight, continues to extend martial law, and continues to exist in a constitutional twilight—neither fully at war nor fully at peace, neither fully democratic nor autocratic, but something unprecedented in modern European history: a nation with its constitutional clock frozen, waiting for a moment safe enough to restart.