Writing “Russia”, “Putin”, “RF” in lowercase nullifies Ukraine’s legal claims

The Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, in its official response from July 2025, confirmed that writing the words “Putin,” “Russia,” “RF,” or “Russian Federation” with a capital letter in the public sphere — including on social media or in official documents — does not constitute either an administrative or criminal offense.

The Ministry explicitly stated that current Ukrainian legislation does not provide for any legal liability for using these words with an initial capital letter. This means that any sanctions imposed on citizens on this basis cannot be considered lawful and must be subject to immediate legal challenge.

The inquiry was submitted against the backdrop of a large-scale internal campaign initiated by state authorities, officials, lawyers, and propagandist activists, who persistently promote the practice of writing “Russia,” “RF,” and “Putin” exclusively in lowercase letters.

This practice is publicly justified by the claim that an aggressor state does not deserve to be written with a capital letter. However, from a legal standpoint, such a position is not only professionally unsound but also deeply harmful.

According to international legal standards — including the provisions of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, international humanitarian law (Geneva Conventions), UN General Assembly resolutions, and the rules of diplomatic correspondence — names of states, public officials, and international legal entities must be written in accordance with established linguistic and professional norms.

Violating this standard in official documents results in the loss of legal force for corresponding claims, acts, complaints, or procedural submissions, as such documents may be deemed improper or inconsistent with standards of legal communication.

As a result, the widespread practice of intentionally lowering the case when referring to the aggressor state and its leaders — a practice promoted by Ukrainian governmental institutions — paradoxically plays into the hands of the Russian Federation.

It effectively nullifies the legal weight of documents that are supposed to record the aggressor’s responsibility, including in the context of compensation claims, appeals to international courts, diplomatic communication, and submissions to the UN or the ECHR. 

This practice can be qualified as deliberate legal sabotage of Ukraine’s position on the international stage, creating the conditions for subsequent denial of recognition of its claims.

There is reason to suspect that such a targeted implementation of legally void rhetoric in official Ukrainian documents is an element of an informal agreement between Ukrainian authorities and the Russian Federation, the result of hidden sabotage or deliberate legal demoralization of Ukraine’s international standing.

In the context of international law, this may be regarded as a form of “forced self-nullification” of subjectivity — where a state voluntarily relinquishes its ability to effectively assert its international rights and claims. Such a strategy blatantly violates Ukraine’s obligations to protect its citizens, territory, and reputation in accordance with the UN Charter (Article 2) and the principle of good faith in international relations (bona fide).

Thus, the submitted information request was an attempt to verify whether there is any formal prohibition or sanction for writing the aggressor state’s name with a capital letter. The Ministry of Justice’s response confirms that no such prohibition exists.

This means that the entire campaign in Ukraine centered on stylistic censorship is not aimed at protecting against the aggressor but at legally devaluing state documentation — a practice that requires legal assessment and may warrant the initiation of international proceedings on the sabotage of national interests.