Dmytro Zelinsky, b. 1978, Seventh-day Adventist. He was baptised in 2002 in Lysychansk, Lugansk oblast; he left his job with the police on the grounds of its incompatibility with his new faith.
After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Zelinsky fled the Lugansk oblast in February 2022. He was registered as an internally displaced person in Kremenets in Ternopil Region in July 2022. Pastor Bohdan Osadchuk confirmed that Zelinsky attended Seventh-day Adventist worship meetings in Kremenets since the spring of 2022. Zelinsky also volunteered for the Dawn of Hope charity working with children with disabilities.
On 21 July 21 2022, a military medical commission declared Zelinsky fit for military service. On 9 September 2022, the Kremenets oblast’s military enlistment office ordered him to report for military service within two days. Zelinsky verbally told officials that he could not serve in the armed forces for reasons of conscience.
Stanislav Nosov, President of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Ukraine, who has known Zelinsky since 2016, noted that Zelinsky explained in writing that as a Seventh-day Adventist, he could not serve in the army, at the third meeting at the enlistment office, having previously limited himself to verbal statements. The military enlistment office and the prosecutor’s office later asserted that Zelinsky did not apply for either a conscientious exemption from mobilisation or an appointment to alternative civilian service.
Zelinsky did not arrive for mobilisation by order on 11 September 2022, after which the prosecutor’s office initiated a case against him under Article 336 of the Criminal Code (“Refusal to conscript for military service during the period of mobilisation or a special period, as well as for military service during the period of conscription of reservists during a special period»). In March 2023, Zelinsky renewed his request — this time in writing — to the Kremenets district military administration for exemption from mobilisation on grounds of conscience or for assignment to alternative civilian service. This request was denied “because such a replacement is not provided for by current legislation.”
On 5 June 2023, the Kremenets District Court judge Tatyana Klim acquitted Zelinsky, referring to Article 35 of the Constitution, which includes the provision: “In the event that the performance of military duty is contrary to the religious beliefs of a citizen, the performance of this duty shall be replaced by alternative (non-military) service.” Judge Klim also noted that the November 2018 presidential decree which invoked martial law did not contain restrictions on the rights set out in Article 35; and that various decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg had established the right of conscientious objection to military service.
Prosecutor Olexandr Yanyuk appealed the acquittal to the Ternopil Court of Appeal. On 28 August 2023, a three-judge panel of the Ternopil Court of Appeal, chaired by Irina Lekan, overturned the acquittal and acceded to the request of prosecutor Roman Harmatiuk to sentence Zelinsky to three years in prison with immediate effect.
In November 2023, Zelinsky began serving a three-year sentence for conscientious objection to mobilisation. He is expected to soon arrive in prison in Kolomyia, Ivano-Frankivsk oblast. He plans to appeal the verdict to the Supreme Court of Ukraine and seek protection of his rights at the European Court of Human Rights.
