The applicant submitted an application for international protection to the OFPRA, arguing he qualified for refugee status on account of his ethnic origin, as his father was of Armenian origin. On 23 August 2021, the OFPRA rejected his application. The applicant appealed against this decision on 11 September 2021. He argued that he was at risk of persecution by his uncle, members of the “Right Sector” party and national authority upon return to Ukraine due to his ethnicity.

The court noted that the applicant’s statements did not suffice to establish his need for international protection under the 1951 Refugee Convention on the grounds of his ethnicity. However, the court stated that the proceedings had established that the applicant originated from the oblast of Kyiv. Based on country-of-origin information, the court observed that Ukraine was overall subjected to high levels of violence since Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified military aggression. Still, the court added that such levels of violence varied from region to region and that Ukrainian nationality did not suffice to determine whether an application for international protection was well-founded. In this regard, it cited reports according to which the number of incidents in the oblast and city of Kyiv was very limited compared to the most affected regions. The court explained that the intensity of the conflict dropped significantly between December 2022 and June 2023 and that Kyiv even became a region of return for internally displaced persons. The court thus concluded that the level of indiscriminate violence in the capital and the oblast of Kyiv was not such as to trigger the application of Article 15(c) of the recast Qualification Directive. The court rejected the appeal and confirmed the OFPRA’s decision.