The case concerned A. and his son A., Ukrainian nationals from Luhansk, who applied for asylum in France. Their asylum applications were rejected by OFPRA in 2021, and they appealed this decision. They claimed that, if returned to Ukraine, they would face serious harm from separatists, due to political opinions imputed to them.

The National Court of Asylum concluded that the applicants’ declarations did not allow to establish the facts that motivated them to leave Ukraine, nor that they would be targeted by separatists if they were to return there.

However, the court stated that A. and A.’s application for international protection should also be examined in light of the current situation in the Luhansk oblast. The court further specified that that the security situation in Ukraine could be characterised by a significant level of violence, which differed in degree from region to region in terms of intensity and impact on the civilian population. For this reason, the court stated that the mere invocation of Ukrainian nationality was not sufficient, by itself, to establish the merits of an application for international protection. In this regard, the court observed that the Donetsk and Luhansk regions appeared among the most impacted areas by the military aggression, with significant damage observed in residential areas. The court, citing data published by various organisations (UNHCR, IOM, OCHA, ACLED, Human Rights Watch, HRMMU) noted that 55% of all civilian victims were registered in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts by November 2022.

The court concluded that the security situation in the Luhansk Oblast could be considered as one of indiscriminate violence of exceptional intensity, thus A. and A. would be at real risk of serious harm if returned. The court granted both applicants subsidiary protection.