★★★★★ 5.0 ON GOOGLE · CLIENT REVIEWS | AVAILABLE 24/7
Author: Ilona Melnychuk, attorneyKey points at a glance
A marriage to a citizen of the Russian Federation now finds itself in an unusual situation: closed borders, severed postal communication, and suspended interstate legal cooperation complicate the usual procedure. This article explains, in practical terms, how to act: which court will hear the case, which law it will apply, how to notify the respondent, and how to obtain a decision even when they stay silent or are located in Russia.
Yes, such a marriage can be dissolved, and the war does not stand in the way. Ukrainian courts continue to hear divorce cases, including those with a foreign element. The right of one spouse to end the marriage is unconditional: the law does not force a person to remain married against their will, and the citizenship of the husband or wife by itself creates neither grounds nor prohibitions. The fact that the other spouse is a citizen of the aggressor state does not change the essence of the case: the court is guided by the Family Code of Ukraine and by procedural law, not by political circumstances. The presence of common children, a property dispute, or the respondent’s unwillingness to divorce affects only the procedure and the timeframes, but does not deprive you of the right to divorce. One distinction is worth remembering: if the spouses have common minor children, the marriage is in any case dissolved by a court and not by the civil registry office (RATSS), because the court at the same time takes the child’s interests into account. The main thing you have to reckon with is not prohibitions but the practical difficulties of notifying the respondent in Russia and of subsequently enforcing a decision on property or recovery on its territory.
In the vast majority of cases, divorce from a citizen of Russia takes place through a court rather than through the civil registry office (RATSS). The registry office dissolves a marriage on the joint application of spouses who have no common children (Article 106 of the Family Code), but this requires the personal presence and mutual consent of both, which is usually impossible to achieve with a person who is in Russia. Article 107 of the Code allows divorce on the application of only one spouse in narrow cases: if the other has been declared missing or legally incapacitated. A mere unwillingness to communicate or being abroad is not such a ground. Even when there are no common children, confirming mutual consent and ensuring the personal participation of the other spouse who is in Russia is impossible in practice, and a notarized application from there effectively does not reach the Ukrainian register. That is why a claim to a court is almost always the real path. If you still hope for a peaceful scenario, familiarize yourself with how dissolution of marriage on the application of one spouse works when the other party is unavailable or opposed.
The claim is filed with the local general court, and as a general rule this is the court at the respondent’s place of residence. However, Article 28 of the CPC gives the claimant an important benefit: a divorce case may be heard at your place of residence if young or underage children live with you, or if for health reasons or other valid reasons it is hard for you to travel to the respondent’s location. For a situation where the husband or wife is in Russia, this is often the decisive rule. At the level of international jurisdiction, Ukrainian courts are competent to hear a case with a foreign element where there is a sufficient connection with Ukraine, in particular when one of the spouses lives here (the Law of Ukraine ‘On Private International Law’, Articles 75 and 76). If you are a citizen of Ukraine and live in Ukraine, there are sufficient grounds for the case to be heard by a Ukrainian court. In the claim it is worth stating the respondent’s last known address, and to the application you should attach a copy of the marriage certificate, copies of your passport and taxpayer registration number, birth certificates of any children, and a receipt for payment of the court fee. We examine the general rules of such disputes in more detail in our article on divorce from a foreign citizen.
When hearing a case in Ukraine, the court in most cases applies the rules of the Family Code of Ukraine to the divorce. By law, the dissolution of marriage is governed by the law that regulates the legal consequences of the marriage (Article 63 of the Law ‘On Private International Law’), and this is primarily the spouses’ common personal law, in its absence the law of their common place of residence, and only then the law of the state with which both are most closely connected (Article 60). In a couple where one person is a citizen of Ukraine and the other a citizen of Russia, there is no common citizenship, so the common or last place of residence of the spouses becomes decisive. When it was in Ukraine, or when the Ukrainian spouse lives here, Ukrainian family law applies. In practice this means that the procedure, the grounds, and the consequences of the divorce will be the usual ones, the same as for two citizens of Ukraine.
When notifying the respondent in the ordinary way is objectively impossible, the court summons them through an announcement on the official website of the judiciary. This is a key feature of such cases. Ukraine has ended postal communication with Russia, and interstate legal cooperation, that is, the transfer of court documents through justice authorities, effectively does not operate with the aggressor state. Therefore a summons cannot be sent to Russia by post or through the Ministry of Justice. Article 128 of the CPC provides that when a person’s registered place of residence, stay, or work is unknown, they are summoned by an announcement on the website of the judiciary, and from the day such an announcement is published the person is considered notified of the hearing. The Supreme Court emphasizes that this method is used precisely when the respondent’s whereabouts are unknown, and not instead of the ordinary summons to a known address. Therefore, in each case the court separately assesses the circumstances and itself determines the proper method of notification. Where there are confirmed means of contact with the respondent, the court may additionally duplicate the notice, for example by email, and records all measures taken in the case file. Proper notification here is not a formality: the lawfulness of the decision, compliance with fair-trial standards, and whether the respondent will later be able to appeal it all depend on it.
If a duly notified respondent fails to appear at the hearing and does not submit a statement of defence, the court may issue a default judgment (Article 280 of the CPC). This requires several conditions at once: the respondent has been duly notified, has failed to appear without valid reasons or has not reported having any, has not submitted a statement of defence, and the claimant does not object to a default hearing. This is exactly the most typical scenario in cases involving a citizen of Russia who ignores the court. A default judgment has the same legal force as an ordinary one. The respondent has the right to file an application for its review within the period established by law, but a person who is in Russia and takes no interest in the proceedings rarely uses this right. The respondent may file an application to review the default judgment within the set period from the day they receive a copy of it, and if the court refuses, the decision can be appealed. In practical terms this means that your divorce will take place even if the other party stays silent, and the default hearing itself does not artificially prolong the case. How to correctly draw up and file the document we explain in our step-by-step instruction on how to file a statement of claim for dissolution of marriage.
For filing a divorce claim in 2026, a court fee of about UAH 1,331 is payable. This amount is 0.4 of the subsistence minimum for able-bodied persons, which from 1 January 2026 equals UAH 3,328. If you file the claim electronically through the ‘Electronic Court’ system, a discount applies (a reducing coefficient is used), so it works out cheaper. As for timeframes: the court may grant the spouses time for reconciliation of up to six months (Article 111 of the Family Code). However, when the other spouse is in Russia and does not take part in the case, there is usually no reason to postpone the hearing for the sake of reconciliation, so this period is rarely applied in such cases. In general, the proceedings may last from several months onward: additional time goes to notifying the respondent through the announcement on the website and to the workload of the particular court. It is worth calculating the exact cost and the list of documents attached to the claim in advance, before filing.
Property and children issues are decided under Ukrainian law; however, enforcing a decision on assets or recovery on the territory of Russia is currently practically impossible. Property acquired during the marriage is, as a general rule, the joint common property of the spouses and is divided in equal shares; division can be claimed together with the divorce or in a separate claim. Assets located in Ukraine can quite realistically be divided, but property on the territory of Russia, despite a decision of a Ukrainian court, is extremely difficult to recover now because of the lack of cooperation. Personal debts of one spouse do not automatically become common, so loans taken out without your consent and not in the interests of the family usually remain the problem of the one who took them. Division of property can also be carried out after the divorce, within the limitation period, so it is not necessary to decide everything at once. If you have joint real estate, a business, or debts, it is advisable to think through a strategy in advance: the service that will help with this is division of property. As for children, their place of residence is determined in light of the child’s best interests, and the divorce itself does not deprive either parent of their rights and duties. The court may award alimony, but enforcing it against a payer who lives in Russia is currently almost impossible because of the severed enforcement channels; the service that will help you prepare for recovery is recovery of alimony.
A marriage terminates on the day the court decision takes legal effect (Article 114 of the Family Code). It is from this moment that you are legally free. There is no need to separately register the divorce with the registry office: the court decision itself serves as confirmation. If you wish, you can obtain a divorce certificate from the registry office (Article 115 of the Code), which is sometimes more convenient to show instead of the full text of the decision. The spouse who changed their surname on marriage may, after the divorce, keep it or return to the pre-marriage one (Article 113 of the Code). If the decision is needed for actions abroad, for example to enter into a new marriage in another country, an apostille is affixed to it; for Russia, however, this issue is for now of little relevance because of the severed relations between the states. Remember that even a default judgment fully terminates the marriage, so once it takes legal effect you can freely build a new life.
No. To dissolve a marriage through a court, the will of one spouse is enough. If the other party is against it, stays silent, or is in Russia, this does not block the process: the court will hear the case anyway and will be able to issue a default judgment.
An unknown place of residence of the respondent is not an obstacle. It is precisely for such cases that the law provides for a summons through an announcement on the official website of the judiciary (Article 128 of the CPC). You state the information known to you in the claim, and the court determines the proper method of notification.
Partly yes. The claim can be filed electronically through the ‘Electronic Court’ system, and you can take part in the hearing remotely by video on request. But the Diia app is not suitable for such a case: as of 2026, online divorce in Diia is still at the pilot stage and is available only for the simplest situations without children, a property dispute, or a foreign element.
You can act remotely: file the claim through the ‘Electronic Court’ system, take part in a video hearing, or authorize a representative under a power of attorney. We describe the options for those who have left in detail in our article on how to divorce from abroad.
Yes. The former ban on dissolving a marriage during the wife’s pregnancy and for a year after the child’s birth was repealed by Law No. 4073-IX, in force since 19 December 2024. As of 2026 there is no such restriction, so pregnancy does not prevent divorce.
Yes, the claims can be combined. Within a single proceeding, the court can dissolve the marriage, determine the child’s place of residence, and award alimony. However, it is sometimes more expedient first to divorce quickly and to pursue the property dispute separately, so as not to drag out the main case. The optimal option depends on your circumstances.
A Ukrainian court can award alimony, but enforcing it against a payer who lives in Russia is currently practically impossible because of the lack of cooperation in enforcing decisions. Awarded alimony accumulates as a debt that can be recovered later, if an opportunity for this arises or the payer has property in Ukraine.
In Ukraine, the divorce is valid from the moment the decision takes legal effect. Abroad, recognition depends on the legislation of the particular country: often a court decision with an apostille and a translation is sufficient. For Russia, the question of recognition has for now lost practical sense because of the severed interstate relations.
Ilona MelnychukAttorney, Lexon law firmSpecializes in family, civil, and commercial cases. Over 15 years of practice: representing clients’ interests in courts and negotiations.Author: Ilona Melnychuk, attorney In Brief You can dissolve a marriage through the registry office (DRATS, the body for the state registration of civil status
The “Lexon” attorney secured the complete cancellation of a resolution imposing a fine under part 2 of Article 122 of the Code of Ukraine on
It happens more often than it seems: one day you suddenly find out about the existence of a court decision issued in a case you
Grand changes await the Ukrainian business environment. As of August 28, 2025, the Commercial Code of Ukraine loses its force. This is not just a
Buying real estate is always a serious step that requires not only significant financial investment, but also thorough legal verification. To avoid unpleasant surprises, it
Buying real estate has always been a responsible step, and in the conditions of 2025, when economic instability and wartime risks intensify fraudulent schemes, it
