Current State of Legal Protection of Migratory Wild Animal Species in Ukraine: Challenges and Prospects

Abstract

Russia’s full-scale armed aggression against Ukraine has severely degraded the habitats of wild migratory species and disrupted their traditional flyways, which form a key component of the European ecological network. These new challenges have simultaneously exposed gaps in domestic legislation and revealed the inability of existing financial instruments to respond rapidly to ecological crises. Objective. The article evaluates the current state of legal protection for migratory wildlife in Ukraine, identifies the main shortcomings and offers a set of integrated solutions aligned with the country’s EU-integration commitments. Methods. The study relies on in-depth content analysis of ratified international treaties, current Ukrainian statutes, the 2022 governmental damage-assessment guidelines and a curated set of recent academic publications; comparative-legal, systems and case-study approaches are applied, with special focus on war-impacted Ramsar sites in the Black Sea–Azov region. Results. Military operations have destroyed or polluted more than 1.2 million ha of protected areas, while existing damage-assessment methods ignore losses of the ecosystem service “migration support.” Law of Ukraine “On the Animal World” merely proclaims corridor protection without recovery procedures; the 2030 Environmental Strategy remains unfunded; neither a legal status for “migration corridor” nor an Ecosystem-Services Act exists, preventing monetisation of losses and their compensation through reparations. Conclusions. Three priority avenues for improvement are proposed: (1) developing and implementing a valuation method for the ecosystem service of migration support; (2) legally anchoring corridors within the protected-area system under a dedicated protection regime; and (3) establishing a Corridor Recovery Fund to channel war reparations and ecosystem-service payments, thereby creating a sustainable financial mechanism for post-war restoration of migration routes.