CrimeaWatch has documented six negative integrity conclusions adopted by Ukraine’s Public Integrity Council (Громадська рада доброчесності, ГРД) between 29 July and 30 September 2026, each concerning a candidate for a judgeship on a court of appeal, and each citing a connection to occupied Crimea among the facts the candidate was required to explain. Seventy-three instance files — one for the Council itself and one for every member who voted, on each decision — were added to the database on 7 October 2026.
In every one of the six, the Crimea-related fact is movement across the administrative boundary with the peninsula, or a family member’s presence on the other side of it. In none of the six is the candidate alleged to have held office under the occupying administration, taken Russian citizenship, or conducted business on occupied territory.
What the Six Decisions Cite#
| Candidate | Date | Crimea-related fact | Instance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Podzirov Andrii Olehovych | 30 Sep 2026 | 13-day family visit to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in June–July 2014, for a children’s dance festival in Yevpatoria | Instance |
| Blyzniuk Ihor Volodymyrovych | 18 Sep 2026 | Parents of the candidate’s cohabitant crossed into Crimea in 2018–2019; the candidate had denied any such travel | Instance |
| Antonov Serhii Volodymyrovych | 1 Sep 2026 | Father and brother entered Crimea in August 2019 through the Kherson Oblast administrative-boundary checkpoint | Instance |
| Yushkov Mykhailo Mykhailovych | 31 Aug 2026 | Repeated visits to occupied territory in 2018–2020; mother-in-law holds a Russian Federation passport | Instance |
| Bikezina Olena Vasylivna | 28 Aug 2026 | Travel from occupied Donetsk to occupied Sevastopol in July 2014, before taking the judicial oath in March 2015 | Instance |
| Lapchenko Oksana Mykolaivna | 29 Jul 2026 | Husband’s two visits to Crimea in 2018 and 2021; mother-in-law owns a house in Chornomorskyi district where the family’s elderly relative lived | Instance |
Two of the six are rated high severity by documented outcome and four medium. In three — Podzirov, Blyzniuk, Yushkov — the Crimea-related facts are stated as grounds for the negative conclusion. In the other three, they appear in the section the Council heads “information which did not itself become a ground for the conclusion, but requires explanation from the candidate.” That distinction is recorded in each instance, because it is the difference between a finding and a demand for justification — and the demand is made in both.
The Checkpoint Read as a Frontier#
Crimea is sovereign Ukrainian territory under Article 2 and Articles 133–134 of Ukraine’s Constitution, and under the 2014 Law on Ensuring the Rights and Freedoms of Citizens and the Legal Regime on the Temporarily Occupied Territory. The line a Ukrainian citizen crosses to enter it is an administrative boundary within one state, not an international border.
The Antonov conclusion records that the candidate’s father and brother entered through “the checkpoint on the administrative boundary” — the Council uses the correct term — and then treats the crossing as a fact calling for explanation on the same footing as travel to the Russian Federation. The Podzirov conclusion applies the “urgent necessity” test to a family holiday, finding a child’s participation in a dance festival an insufficient reason to enter the territory. In the Lapchenko conclusion, the Council states explicitly that a candidate cannot be held responsible for relatives’ independent decisions about where to live or whether to cross a border, then concludes in the next paragraph that those relatives’ presence in Crimea “may potentially create risks of external influence, pressure or blackmail” and requires exhaustive explanation.
The terminology is Ukrainian. The operative legal effect is not: a journey to a village in Chornomorskyi district to care for a grandmother is scrutinised as contact with an aggressor state.
Who Voted#
Seventeen Council members participated across the six decisions. Five voted on all six: Olha Veretilnyk, Yuliia Oleshchenko, Serhii Kryvonos, Anastasiia Borema and Artem Panchenko. Each conclusion was adopted by between 10 and 12 of the Council’s 18 members; none was unanimous, and none was contested — the remaining members did not vote rather than voting against.
Every documented decision is recorded against the institution and against each member who voted for it. That is the point of the per-member instance: a collegial body’s conclusion is also the act of the individuals who adopted it.
What Was Excluded#
Two further conclusions from the same period were examined and left out. Both concern the temporarily occupied territory of Donetsk Oblast and the structures of the so-called “DNR”; neither names Crimea, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Sevastopol, or any settlement on the peninsula. The reasoning in one of them would apply to Crimea if it were applied there — which is an argument about a framework, not a documented Crimea connection, and this database records the latter.
Each of the six decisions is cited to its published PDF on the Council’s own site and to an archived copy of that PDF in the Internet Archive, captured on 7 October 2026. Government sites rename and re-upload files; a link to a document that no longer resolves is not evidence.
CrimeaWatch documents what Ukrainian institutions state in their own published decisions. Every instance on this site quotes the decision text, names the body and the individuals who adopted it, and links both to the source document and to an archived copy of it. Characterisations of what a decision means are identified as such and kept separate from what the decision says.