Ukraine Issues - 2024

Disputes - international

Ukraine-Belarus: in 1997, Ukraine and Belarus signed a boundary delimitation treaty; the instruments of ratification were exchanged in 2013; a joint commission should be established to enable the actual demarcation to begin

Ukraine-Hungary: hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees are crossing the border to Hungary to escape the Russian invasion in their country

Ukraine-Moldova: hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees are crossing the border to Moldova to escape the Russian invasion in their country; Ukraine and Moldova signed an agreement officially delimiting their border in 1999, but the border has not been demarcated due to Moldova's difficulties with the break-away region of Transnistria; Moldova and Ukraine operate joint customs posts to monitor transit of people and commodities through Moldova's Transnistria Region, which remains under the auspices of an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe-mandated peacekeeping mission comprised of Moldovan, Transnistrian, Russian, and Ukrainian troops

Ukraine-Poland: hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees are crossing the border to Poland to escape the Russian invasion in their country

Ukraine-Romania: hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees are crossing the border to Romania to escape the Russian invasion in their country, the ICJ in 2009 ruled largely in favor of Romania in its dispute submitted in 2004 over Ukrainian-administered Zmiyinyy/Serpilor (Snake) Island and Black Sea maritime boundary delimitation; Romania opposes Ukraine's reopening of a navigation canal from the Danube border through Ukraine to the Black Sea

Ukraine-Russia: the dispute over the boundary between Russia and Ukraine through the Kerch Strait and Sea of Azov is suspended due to the occupation of Crimea by Russia

Ukraine-Slovakia: tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees are crossing the border to Slovakia to escape the Russian invasion of their country

Refugees and internally displaced persons

IDPs:

1,461,700 (Russian-sponsored separatist violence in Crimea and eastern Ukraine) (2021); 3.67 million (2023) (since Russian invasion that started in February 2022); note – the more recent invasion total may reflect some double counting, since it is impossible to determine how many of the recent IDPs may also include IDPs from the earlier Russian-sponsored violence in Crimea and eastern Ukraine

36,459 (2022); note - citizens of the former USSR who were permanently resident in Ukraine were granted citizenship upon Ukraine's independence in 1991, but some missed this window of opportunity; people arriving after 1991, Crimean Tatars, ethnic Koreans, people with expired Soviet passports, and people with no documents have difficulty acquiring Ukrainian citizenship; following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, thousands of Crimean Tatars and their descendants deported from Ukraine under the STALIN regime returned to their homeland, some being stateless and others holding the citizenship of Uzbekistan or other former Soviet republics; a 1998 bilateral agreement between Ukraine and Uzbekistan simplified the process of renouncing Uzbek citizenship and obtaining Ukrainian citizenship

Illicit drugs

a transit country for non-domestically produced drugs, such as cocaine and heroin, bound for consumer markets in the European Union and Russia; overland corridors for the movement of these drugs exists, but Ukraine’s southern ports on the Black Sea, notably Odesa and Pivdennyi, are disrupted due to the war;  domestically produced amphetamine, methamphetamine, methadone, alpha-PVP, and new psychoactive substances (NPS) remain threats to Ukrainian society; production and consumption of cannabis remains significant