Proud of the “new country”: who is helping the occupiers to form the bar in Zaporizhzhia region

After the illegal referendums in the occupied territories of southern Ukraine, Russia began to actively form its justice system there. Earlier, ZMINA wrote about the creation of “judicial” bodies in the occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region. However, lawyers play an equally important role in court proceedings.

How the Zaporizhzhia Oblast Bar Association was assembled out of nowhere and who among Ukrainian lawyers contributed to the integration of the occupied territories into the Russian legal space, read in this article.

Under a simplified procedure

Almost immediately after the pseudo-referendums in the occupied territories, Vadim Kliuvgant, the Vice President of the Russian Federal Bar Association (RFBA), and Konstantin Dobrynin, the State Secretary, left the Board. They explained this by saying, “In the near future, it will be necessary to implement the latest decisions made by the highest state authorities,” hinting at the integration of occupied territories into Russia. The lawyers “did not consider it possible” to participate in the implementation of these decisions.

Around the same time, another Vice President of the RFBA, Gennadiy Sharov, announced that exams would be held in November [of 2022] and “measures would be taken to establish four new bar associations.” Regarding the “Crimean experience,” Sharov suggested that “lawyers in the new regions will not have to be retrained for a long time and in an extensive manner.”

In November 2022, confidence that the regions would remain under Russian control was greatly diminished, so the demonstrations were postponed. But in December of that year, the issue was revisited. For Ukrainian lawyers who wanted to continue their legal practice in the occupied territories, accelerated courses in Russian law had already been held, and exams were held under a “simplified scheme,” It is not known what the “simplified” procedure was. However, the Russian propagandists noted that the exam was administered by a specially created commission of representatives of the Russian Ministry of Justice and the Federal Bar Association and that electronic testing in the integrated information system of the Russian Bar was not conducted “due to technical impossibility.”

In the Zaporizhzhia region, 36 Ukrainian lawyers took advantage of the opportunity to obtain the status of a Russian lawyer quickly. In exchange for this opportunity, they were forced to act as extras at an event to establish the Zaporizhzhia Oblast Bar Association with the approval of the Charter and the election of governing bodies. The structure was registered on January 30, 2023, at the address of the Melitopol City Administration. Nevertheless, as of mid-May 2024, the Russian register of lawyers on the official website of the Russian Ministry of Justice does not contain any information about lawyers from the Zaporizhzhia region, nor is the region itself in the list of regions represented in the register.

A supporter of the “Russian world”

Olena Shapovalova, a Melitopol lawyer, was elected “President” of the chamber, and the Myrotvorets website states that she “supported the ‘Russian world’ before the occupation.” The national legal catalog of Ukraine on the LigaZakon website and other platforms does not contain any reviews of her work, but her contacts include an e-mail on mail.ru. In mid-June last year, according to the Center for Investigative Journalism, she founded a “Bar Association” in Zaporizhzhia region.

Olena Shapovalova (in the middle)

The publication then drew attention to the fact that Olena Shapovalova was still listed in the Bar Council of Zaporizhzhia region. Her certificate number 488, issued in June 2004, was not revoked. It has not happened to this day either – Shapovalova openly contributes to the formation of Russian law while retaining her Ukrainian lawyer status.

Earlier, ZMINA reported that one of the factors that made it possible to deprive Yulia Marchuk, the “President of the Sevastopol Bar Association,” of the status of a Ukrainian lawyer was the presence in her registration data of the e-mail address to which the notice of the initiation of disciplinary proceedings was sent. There is reason to believe that the National Bar Association of Ukraine also has the address advokat_shapovalova@ukr.net. However, there is no particular desire to deprive collaborators of their status, which is surprising to the Ukrainian legal community.

In service of the occupiers

In general, other lawyers who have received Russian certificates are presumed innocent. The same is true for doctors or utility workers, but only as long as they are not involved in any actions aimed at supporting integration efforts to include the occupied territory of the Zaporizhzhia region in the Russian legal field, as Shapovalova did or in openly serving the interests of Russian security forces, as is now common among appointees in occupied Crimea.

For example, the RIA-Pivden website reports that Melitopol’s lawyer, Natalia Kalmykova, has passed information about city residents with a pro-Ukrainian position to the local occupation administration. In addition, she participated in the “constituent assembly of the Russian Lawyers Association” in the Zaporizhzhia region.

“Establishing this association is a significant event for all lawyers and residents of the Zaporizhzhia region. And I, as a representative of the Zaporizhzhia Bar Association, am proud that the lawyers of our region have become part of the large human rights family of our country,” Kalmykova said.

Natalia Kalmykova

At the same time, she did not give up her lawyer status in another country – Ukraine, and she is still listed in the register of the National Bar Association of Ukraine as a current lawyer of the Zaporizhzhia Bar Council.

In addition, there may be an ambiguous attitude towards lawyers who have moved to “strengthen” the bar from other occupied parts of Ukraine. As, for example, the Crimean Oleksandr Katelin did. 

Oleksandr Katelin

Currently, Katelin offers his services in criminal and administrative cases in occupied Melitopol, and it is unlikely that the change of venue after the city’s capture has anything to do with humanitarian considerations and his duty as a lawyer.