Who Are the Ukrainian People in Legal Terms

The Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, in its official response issued in 2025, confirmed that the only place in the Constitution where the term “Ukrainian people” is explicitly defined is in the preamble. There, the “Ukrainian people” is described as “the citizens of Ukraine of all nationalities.”

However, the Ministry did not provide a clear legal definition of the term — instead, it referred to Article 5 of the Constitution, which mentions “the people” as the bearer of sovereignty but does not specify who exactly that entails. Moreover, the Ministry used the phrase “in our opinion,” thereby admitting that its conclusion is based solely on interpretation rather than on any clearly defined legal norm.

This reinforces the existence of legal uncertainty and competition in the interpretation of the concept of “people” within the Ukrainian legal system.

The key issue is that, according to Article 38 of the Law of Ukraine “On Law-Making Activity” (No. 3354-IX), the preamble of a legal act does not contain legal norms and has no binding legal force. Therefore, the definition of “people” in the preamble of the Constitution cannot be considered a legal norm or a source of enforceable legal rights.

In the original version of Law No. 3354-IX, Section XIV “Final Provisions,” paragraph 2, subparagraph 7 explicitly stated that the preamble “does not contain legal norms” and “has no direct legal effect.” This provision was later removed by Law No. 3624-IX dated March 21, 2024, which formally softened the wording of the law. However, in substance, nothing changed: the core rule established in Article 38 of the same law remains in force — the preamble still lacks legal status and cannot be applied as a source of binding legal norms.

At the same time, recent legislative developments have created an entirely new legal framework for the concept of “people” — one that lies outside the scope of the Constitution. This has been achieved through the adoption of the following laws:

• Law No. 1616-IX “On the Indigenous Peoples of Ukraine” (adopted July 1, 2021)

• Law No. 2827-IX “On National Minorities (Communities) of Ukraine” (adopted December 13, 2022)

Both of these laws have the status of direct-acting legal instruments. They assign special legal rights not to the general category of “Ukrainian people,” but to specific ethnocultural groups — namely, indigenous peoples and national minorities — while excluding the titular ethnic majority (ethnic Ukrainians) as a collective subject of such rights.

Additionally, a third key law — Law No. 2215-IX “On De-Sovietization of Ukrainian Legislation” (adopted April 21, 2022) — effectively erased the legal continuity of the Ukrainian people as a historical bearer of sovereignty.

Annex No. 2 of that law repealed all editions of the constitutions of the Ukrainian SSR (1919, 1929, 1937, 1978) and other acts in which the Ukrainian people were recognized as the legitimate source of power and ownership of national land and resources. This move eliminated the legal foundation that once connected ethnic Ukrainians to historical sovereignty, national territory, and state legitimacy.

As a result, there now exists direct legal competition between two interpretations of “the people”: a civic definition versus an ethnocultural one. However, the civic status of ethnic Ukrainians as “the people” is no longer backed by any direct legal norms and exists solely as a matter of assumption and non-binding interpretation.

This legal uncertainty has been further exacerbated by the fact that direct-acting rights were granted exclusively to certain identity groups (indigenous peoples and minorities), while the titular ethnic majority was deliberately left outside of legal recognition. This has created a structural legal inequality in which the concept of the “Ukrainian people” has become the subject of political manipulation rather than a clear constitutional foundation.

In short, the only remaining reference to ethnic Ukrainians as a people is no longer a matter of law, but merely of opinion — without any enforceable legal confirmation in current Ukrainian legislation.