(ANSA) - ROME, AUGUST 03 - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was ready to evaluate the legalization of "civil unions" between people of the same sex, but not to change the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman in wartime woman as expressed in the Constitution.
The New York Times reports it.
Zelensky responded to the popular petition on same-sex marriages which is receiving widespread support in the country.
Ukraine does not currently recognize the right to marriage for same-sex couples, nor does it have a status that allows them to enter into civil unions.
Demands to grant these couples equal rights have also increased following the deaths of LGBTQ soldiers fighting to defend the country from Russian invasion.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, in fact, has an obligation to inform the parents and spouse or other close relatives of a soldier who is killed.
But these rules don't apply to same-sex couples.
In Ukraine, homosexuals do not have the right to visit their hospitalized partner, to share property, to care for the children of a deceased partner, to reclaim the body of a partner killed in the war, or to collect death payments from the state.
The petition urging Zelensky to uphold the property rights of same-sex couples was initiated by Anastasia Sovenko, 24, an English teacher from Zaporizhzhia who identifies as bisexual.
(HANDLE).