The European Court of Human Rights has held Ukraine responsible for the fatal acid attack on anti-corruption campaigner Kateryna Gandzyuk, ruling that the state failed both to protect her life and to investigate her killing effectively.

In a Chamber judgment delivered on 5 November 2026, the court in Strasbourg found unanimously that Ukraine violated Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, covering the right to life and the duty to conduct an effective investigation, and Article 10, covering freedom of expression.

Gandzyuk, a mayoral adviser in the southern city of Kherson, was attacked on 31 July 2018 when a man poured about a litre of sulfuric acid over her as she got into a car. She suffered burns to up to 40 percent of her body and died in hospital on 4 November 2018 from multi-organ failure caused by the chemical burns.

A premeditated attack to silence a watchdog

The court found that the attack had been a premeditated and paid operation carried out to silence an individual acting as a public watchdog. Although private individuals carried out the attack, the judges said there was a close connection between the attack and the exercise or abuse of public authority, which engaged the state’s responsibility.

Gandzyuk had publicly accused senior regional officials of shielding illegal logging, saying fires in the nearby Oleshky forest were being set to cover it up. She also accused a police official of demanding kickbacks on city contracts. The court said the attack was objectively capable of instilling fear in other journalists, activists and members of civil society, and carried an especially serious chilling effect on public debate about corruption and abuse of power.

Investigation failures

The case was brought by Gandzyuk’s parents, Viktor and Nadiya Gandzyuk, and her partner, Sergiy Denysov. They argued that Ukraine was responsible both for the attack and for failing to investigate it effectively and independently.

Police first treated the attack as hooliganism and arrested a man who had an alibi. Ukraine’s security service took over the main investigation the day after Gandzyuk died. Five men were convicted in 2019. Regional council chairman Vladyslav Manger and Oleksii Levin each received a 10-year sentence in 2023 for organising an attack that intentionally caused serious injuries and resulted in death. Both men have appealed, and the appeal hearing was set to start over in December.

The Strasbourg judges found that investigators had failed to pursue leads thoroughly or promptly, including phone records that were only partly analysed and material that police and security officials failed to share. A separate inquiry had turned up nothing new by August 2024.

Compensation and next steps

The court ordered Ukraine to pay 40,000 euros to Gandzyuk’s parents jointly and 40,000 euros to her partner in respect of non-pecuniary damage, plus 4,000 euros in costs. Either side has three months to seek an exceptional review by the Grand Chamber. Once the judgment becomes final, Ukraine has three months to pay.

Whether Manger’s and Levin’s convictions stand remains a matter for the Ukrainian appeals court. The ruling comes as Ukraine reforms its courts while seeking to join the European Union and fighting Russia’s war. Nearly 35 percent of judicial posts were vacant in April, according to the OECD’s 2026 review.

Why the ruling matters

The judgment is significant because it holds a state responsible not only for an attack carried out by private individuals, but for the failure to investigate it properly. Legal experts said the ruling confirms that intimidation of journalists and activists by state and private actors chills others from speaking out, and that governments have a duty to protect them and investigate threats.

For Gandzyuk’s family, the ruling is a milestone in a case that has lasted eight years. Her father’s lawyer said it was the only case since Ukraine regained independence in which a court had convicted the organisers of a fatal attack on a civic activist, and the family was still waiting to learn who else might have been behind it.