Foreign countries do not always extradite suspected criminals to Ukraine: there are refusals due to the war

Since 2022, there have been cases when foreign courts have refused to extradite suspects and convicts to Ukraine because of Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine. This is stated in the response to the request LIGA.net provided by the Office of the Prosecutor General.

"There were facts of refusal by the courts of some countries to extradite foreigners to Ukraine (both for criminal prosecution in Ukraine and for the execution of sentences of Ukrainian courts), citing the fact that extradition to Ukraine is dangerous to the life and health of persons in the context of the war with Russia," the document says.

At the same time, the Office of the Prosecutor General noted that foreign countries still satisfy Ukraine's extradition requests and provided the relevant statistics:

→ in 2022, there were 606 extradition requests, 53 were executed (including 23 received last year);

→ in 2023 – 150 appeals, 96 were fulfilled (50 of them were sent that year);

→ in 2024 – 224 appeals, 119 were fulfilled (including 78 received in the reporting period);

→ 88 appeals in January-March 2025, 69 were fulfilled (33 of them were sent in these three months).

• Ukraine has been waiting for more than nine months for the extradition of MP Dmytruk from the UK, according to the Prosecutor General's Office's response to LIGA.net.
• In 2024, Finland refused to extradite Russian neo-Nazi Petrovsky to Ukraine due to "concerns about the conditions of detention in Ukrainian prisons," but he was eventually sentenced to life in prison. The Office of the Prosecutor General reported that Finnish law enforcement officers cooperated with Ukrainian colleagues to do so.
• At the same time, Ukraine did not serve any suspicions on former Wagner group terrorist Medvedev and ex-military officer Filatiev, who fled the aggressor country for Europe.