Ukraine

[UA] Policy on the national memory adopted

IRIS 2025-8:1/10

Andrei Richter

Comenius University (Bratislava)

On 21 August 2025, President Volodymyr Zelensky signed the Law on the Principles of State Policy on the National Memory of the Ukrainian People, which had earlier been adopted by the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament). The law entered into force on 30 August.

The document concerns Ukraine’s information policy. One of the directions of the policy is to popularise the history of Ukraine, including promoting the creation of informational products to restore and preserve national memory (Art. 7, para 1).

One of the international aspects of the policy is an obligation of the State to organise informational and other events that popularise worldwide the role of the Ukrainian people in the fight against totalitarianism and defence of human rights and freedoms (Art. 22 para 4).

The document introduces several new legal concepts (Art. 1). In particular, it officially denotes the armed conflict that started on 19 February 2014 as the “War for the Independence of Ukraine”. The law now also refers to “Ruscism” (Russia + fascism) defined as “a type of totalitarian ideology and practices that underlie the Russian Nazi totalitarian regime, established in the aggressor state, and are based on the traditions of Russian chauvinism and imperialism, the practices of communist and national socialist (Nazi) totalitarian regimes”.

Another new legal notion is that of “historical anti-Ukrainian propaganda” – “dissemination of knowingly false information about the history of Ukraine for the purpose of publicly glorifying or justifying imperialism and totalitarianism, responsible political regimes, for a public denial of crimes against the Ukrainian people, influencing public opinion in Ukraine or in other states to deny the subjectivity of Ukraine and the constitutional rights of the Ukrainian people”.

The law stipulates the relevant role of Derzhkomteleradio (State Committee on Television and Radio of Ukraine), the national executive body in charge of implementation of the national policy in the sphere of media and information. In particular, it shall implement measures to prevent internal and foreign cultural and informational interference that undermines the principles of national information security or impedes the implementation of the national memory policy (Art. 15, para 5).

The Law defines the Ukrainian National Remembrance Institute “as a central executive body with special status”, which ensures its proper funding and effective operation. The National Remembrance Institute will, in particular, provide interpretative statements on this and earlier laws of Ukraine, such as the Law “on the ban on the propaganda of the Russian Nazi totalitarian regime, of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation as a terrorist state against Ukraine, of the symbols of the military invasion of the Russian Nazi totalitarian regime in Ukraine”, and the Law “on condemnation of the Communist and Nazi totalitarian regimes in Ukraine and banning of propaganda of their symbols”. The opinions it formulates are binding for all public authorities (Art. 14, para 1).