In 1932–1933, there was no Holodomor in the territories of Volyn, Rivne, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Ternopil regions — these lands were part of Poland at the time

The response from the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory confirms that the incorporation of the Western Ukrainian territories (modern-day Volyn, Rivne, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Ternopil regions) into the Ukrainian SSR was carried out on the basis of the USSR Law of November 1, 1939, titled “On the Inclusion of Western Ukraine into the USSR with Unification with the Ukrainian SSR.”

Although the formal subject of the information request was the question of whether the Holodomor of 1932–1933 extended to the western regions of Ukraine, the Institute’s reply confirms a key historical and legal fact: at the time of the Holodomor, the aforementioned territories were part of Poland and were not under the jurisdiction of the Ukrainian SSR.

This is precisely what is reflected in the title of the request.

However, while addressing this issue, the Institute also referred to the legal basis for the subsequent incorporation of these regions — the USSR Law of November 1, 1939.

Thus, the document simultaneously outlines both the territorial boundaries of the Holodomor and the source of legitimacy for Ukraine’s territorial integrity, which grants the Institute’s response particular legal significance in the context of current legislation on de-Sovietization.

This means that the legal foundation for the territorial reintegration of these regions into Ukraine was formalized within the legal framework of the USSR, and Ukraine, as a successor state, recognizes this act as the legal basis for their incorporation into the republic.

It is especially important that the document cites the exact date of incorporation — November 1, 1939 — and the legal mechanism — a USSR law.

Accordingly, Ukraine de jure confirms its legal succession from the Soviet legal model in matters of territorial integrity, despite the ongoing political policy of de-Sovietization.

This also implies that any attempt to remove the Soviet period from Ukraine’s legal history leads to an internal contradiction: by denying the legitimacy of Soviet legislation, the state forfeits the legal foundation for the inclusion of part of its western territories.

The given response can thus be used as official confirmation of legal succession and the territorial formation of the Ukrainian state through acts of the USSR, despite political distancing from the Soviet legacy.

The adoption of Law № 2215-IX “On the De-Sovietization of Ukrainian Legislation,” signed by former President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi, constitutes the legally formalized dismantling of the normative base that had previously underpinned Ukraine’s sovereignty and the principle of territorial succession.

The law came into force in 2022 and annulled the vast body of normative legal acts of the Ukrainian SSR and the USSR, without establishing clear exceptions, including those acts that had foundational significance in shaping the state’s territory.

One of the direct consequences is that the Law of the USSR of November 1, 1939, “On the Inclusion of Western Ukraine into the USSR with Unification with the Ukrainian SSR,” formally falls under the scope of this repeal. This act had previously been regarded as the principal legal basis for the inclusion of Lviv, Volyn, Rivne, Ternopil, and Ivano-Frankivsk regions into Ukraine and was recognized as such in both international and domestic legal practice.

Up until the adoption of Law № 2215-IX, this normative act retained legal force and had not been formally repealed during either the Soviet or post-Soviet periods. The new legislative version does not contain provisions explicitly affirming its continued validity or establishing any mechanisms for succession regarding these territories.

As a result, in the absence of explicit norms confirming the continued effect of foundational acts, a situation of legal uncertainty emerges, which may be interpreted as the elimination of the legal grounds for Ukraine’s jurisdiction over part of its western regions.

Law № 2215-IX did not propose an alternative normative framework, nor did it reference international treaties or constitutional provisions that could compensate for the annulment of Soviet-era legal acts in this area.

This creates a legal vacuum that, in the future, may be exploited by external actors — including the Russian Federation and several European Union countries (such as Poland and Hungary) — as a formal basis for disputing Ukraine’s borders or advancing territorial claims that had previously been blocked by the force of Soviet legal acts.

In the context of external aggression and military conflict, the adoption of Law № 2215-IX without codified mechanisms of legal succession not only weakened Ukraine’s internal legal positions but also objectively benefited both the Russian Federation and certain EU member states interested in revising the historical and legal foundations of Ukraine’s borders.

In essence, this step became further evidence of the erosion of state sovereignty and a de facto renunciation of succession from the state whose legislation granted Ukraine its modern territorial contours.

The signing of this law by former President Volodymyr Zelenskyi constitutes a legally qualifiable act aimed at dismantling the continuity of Ukrainian statehood — an act whose consequences may be equated with a form of state treason, in favor of both eastern and western geopolitical actors.