What the 30th Anniversary of Ukraine’s Constitution Means in a Nation at War
Ukraine’s Constitution, adopted in 1996 after years of political struggle, established the country as a sovereign, democratic, unitary state anchored in European values. Its core principles core principles – sovereignty, territorial integrity, human rights, and democratic governance – have since bec
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Today, Ukraine marks the 30th anniversary of its Constitution. This occasion is significant as regards national self-identification. It commemorates Ukraine’s freely chosen confirmation three decades ago as a democratic state that had liberated itself from Soviet totalitarian colonial rule and aligned itself with the European family of democratic states.
The Constitution’s principles have been tested by Russian aggression. The principles enshrined on June 28, 1996 – sovereignty, territorial integrity, democracy, and the right to choose its own path – form the substance of what Ukraine defends. Russia’s full-scale invasion launched in February 2022 was an assault on Ukraine’s constitutional existence as an independent, democratic state oriented toward Europe.
The fact that it took almost five years after independence was achieved to adopt this crucial document indicates how complex the situation was in the early 1990s. It attests to the continuing struggle in those years between progressive political forces seeking to remove the vestiges of Ukraine’s Soviet past and the still-powerful residual elements from the communist era, who wanted to apply the brakes and maintain their influence.
And, there was the problem, then as now, with a powerful Russian neighbor unreconciled to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of independent states – particularly Ukraine – next door. So the issue of security and finding a modus vivendi on which to base peaceful coexistence with Russia while looking westward, on the one hand, and bolstering Ukraine’s democracy internally, on the other, were both major and interconnected challenges that had to be addressed.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda has offered to mediate the ongoing diplomatic conflict between Ukraine and Poland if both nations request assistance.
The difficulty in adopting the Constitution reflected deeper struggles: a lack of democratic experience after seven decades of totalitarian rule, endemic corruption inherited from the Soviet system, mounting economic difficulties as the command economy collapsed, and fundamental disagreements about Ukraine’s identity, language policy, and geopolitical orientation.
These were not merely procedural obstacles but existential questions about what kind of state Ukraine would become.
The seeds of constitutional democracy: 1991-1992
The struggle for a new democratic Ukrainian constitution began earlier than generally thought. As the Soviet Union was imploding and Russia itself was being torn apart by the political rivalry between Soviet Communist leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, who was championing the cause of a “sovereign” Russian Federation within the Soviet Union, Ukraine’s voters on March 17, 1991, overwhelmingly supported Ukraine’s state sovereignty, declared by its Soviet Ukrainian parliament the previous July.
Subsequently, a “concept” of a new Ukrainian constitution was agreed upon within the republican legislature still dominated by the Communists. It formally endorsed the following democratic principles: a multi-party system, the rule of law, respect for human rights, religious freedom, and guarantees of national minorities’ rights. But this proved hard to enact.
On Aug. 24 that year, after a failed putsch attempt by Communist hardliners in Moscow, the Ukrainian parliament proclaimed the republic’s independence. Its formal endorsement in a referendum held on Dec. 1, 1991 – with over 90% support – precipitated the final dissolution of the Soviet Union that very month.
Before his election at the end of 1991 as the first president of independent Ukraine, former high-ranking Communist official Leonid Kravchuk, who had finally embraced the cause of independence, had proposed that the Communist-dominated parliament should adopt a new democratic constitution and a law on multi-party elections and dissolve itself. He advocated a strong presidential system in order to push through reforms.
But the conservative leftist majority blocked this transition from the old to the new. An opportunity was squandered, and precious time was lost.
In June 1992, the Constitutional Commission proposed a draft proposing a compromise between presidential and parliamentary forms of rule. But internal divisions, the legacy of the past, lack of democratic experience, corruption, and mounting economic difficulties blocked progress. The country operated under an amended Soviet-era constitution – a situation that became increasingly untenable as political tensions mounted.
Constitutional crisis and the path to resolution: 1994-1996
Eventually, this glaring indecision as to the division of powers led to a serious political crisis after Leonid Kuchma defeated Kravchuk in a democratic presidential election in July 1994. At the end of May 1995, he threatened to hold a referendum on the issue and, in this way, intimidated the parliament into accepting a temporary “constitutional agreement” which broadened the executive’s powers.
The hope was to finalize preparations and end political squabbling so that the parliament could adopt a new constitution around June 16, 1996. A revised draft was completed and proposed in March. Kuchma declared that it “was completely European in letter and in spirit,” providing for a “mixed republican type of government” based on a sensible division of powers and a bicameral legislature.
Weeks of political haggling followed in parliament, with the leftists opposing the proposed draft. Once again, Kuchma threatened to call a referendum and broke the opposition. On June 4, the draft constitution finally got through its first reading with 258 votes to 109. But a two-thirds majority – 301 votes – was needed for its adoption on its second reading.
The political battle was to resume on June 19, but there were further delays. The main stumbling blocks were the state language, state symbols, the degree of Crimea’s autonomy, private land ownership, and the ban on foreign military bases on Ukrainian territory. Each of these issues touched on fundamental questions of identity and sovereignty that divided the parliament and the country.
The all-night session: Democracy forged through compromise
On June 26, Kuchma threatened a referendum for the third time, and this time even the democrats feared that, as one of them, Volodymyr Yavorivsky, put it, it “would tear Ukraine apart with an uncertain outcome.”
The acrimonious parliamentary session began the following day and continued through the night. A hitherto relatively obscure deputy, Mykhailo Syrota, an engineer from Cherkasy, played an outstanding role in steering the debates over every one of the 161 articles in a constructive direction. His patient, methodical approach – finding compromise language that could bridge ideological divides – proved crucial in the final hours.
The fundamental law was adopted on the morning of June 28, 1996, following exhausting negotiations that resolved the outstanding disputes through compromise language acceptable to both the presidential and parliamentary factions.
What the Constitution enshrined
The new Constitution, describing Ukraine as a unitary state (with very broad autonomy given to Crimea – a provision that became critically relevant in 2014), enshrined basic democratic principles and recognized the right to own private property; Ukraine’s national symbols banned by Moscow during Soviet rule, Ukrainian as the country’s sole state language (while guaranteeing the free development, use, and protection of Russian and other languages of the national minorities of Ukraine); religious freedom; and the temporary stationing of foreign military formations on Ukrainian territory on the basis of leasing arrangements approved by parliament.
The Constitution established Ukraine as a republic with a mixed presidential-parliamentary system, guaranteeing separation of powers, an independent judiciary, and local self-government. It affirmed that human rights and freedoms, and their guarantees, determine the essence and orientation of the state’s activity and that the state is answerable to the individual for its actions.
Crucially, Article 17 declared that “protecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine” is “the most important function of the State” and “the duty of the entire Ukrainian people.” Article 2 affirmed that “Ukraine is a unitary state” and that “the territory of Ukraine within its existing border is indivisible and inviolable.” These provisions would become the constitutional foundation for Ukraine’s resistance to Russian aggression.
Debunking the Russian myth of Ukrainian “neutrality”
Incidentally, there was no mention of Ukraine being a “neutral” state, as Russian propagandists have subsequently claimed in attempting to justify aggression. This fabrication has been used to argue that Ukraine’s pursuit of Euro-Atlantic integration somehow violated its constitutional obligations. The Constitution, in fact, explicitly allowed for the possibility of Ukraine joining collective security arrangements and left the question of geopolitical orientation to be determined through democratic processes.
The provision allowing foreign military bases “on the basis of leasing arrangements” was specifically included to accommodate the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s presence in Crimea – a compromise that Moscow would later exploit when it illegally annexed the peninsula in 2014.
The Constitution tested by war: 30 years later
Three decades after its adoption, Ukraine’s Constitution has become the legal and moral foundation for national resistance. Articles 17 and 2 – reaffirming sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the obligation to defend them – have served as the constitutional foundation for mobilization and defense. The democratic provisions have been upheld even under martial law, with the Verkhovna Rada still functioning, civil society remaining vibrant, and the rule of law – although strained by wartime exigencies – still in operation.
The European focus of the Constitution has been confirmed by Ukraine’s EU candidate status, granted in 2022, standing as the realization of the constitutional decision made in 1996 to conform to European democratic standards.
The war has vindicated the wisdom of those who fought to ensure the Constitution protected Ukrainian sovereignty and rejected any notion of permanent neutrality.
Russia’s actions – from energy blackmail to the 2014 aggression in Crimea and Donbas to the 2022 full-scale invasion –show that the Kremlin has never accepted Ukraine’s constitutional existence as an independent, democratic state. Russia’s war aims include not just territorial conquest but the destruction of Ukraine’s constitutional framework and its replacement with a puppet regime subordinate to Moscow.
A living commitment to democracy and sovereignty
On the adoption of Ukraine’s Constitution, President Kuchma declared: “Wisdom has triumphed… This historic event… will go down as one of the most significant moments in the annals of the modern history of the Ukrainian state.”
Thirty years later, those words resonate with even greater force. The Constitution that emerged from the all-night session in 1996 was imperfect – it would be amended multiple times, most significantly after the Orange Revolution of 2004 and the Revolution of Dignity in 2014. But it established the essential framework: Ukraine as a sovereign, democratic, unitary state committed to human rights, the rule of law, and European values.
Today, therefore, is not merely a retrospective commemoration. Ukraine is testing its Constitution Day document through active military conflict. Ukraine’s current defense of its territorial integrity and constitutional framework demonstrates the substantive and enduring commitment behind that declaration.
This is an updated version of an earlier article by the author that appeared in Kyiv Post in 2025. The link to the original article ishere.
