Translation Risks in Ukrainian-Russian Judicial Discourse

This article investigates the nature, structure, and mechanisms of translation risks arising in Ukrainian-Russian judicial discourse due to the pronounced formal, lexical, and structural proximity of the two languages. In specialised legal translation, accuracy is directly bound to preserving procedural equivalence, legal meaning, and the exact communicative function of an utterance. Unlike in general translation, a translator’s choice in court interpreting or legal document processing affects not merely the meaning of words, but also the procedural status of trial participants, the legal character of procedural actions, and the binding legal consequences of statements. The main scientific problem lies in the contradiction between interlingual formal closeness, which creates a deceptive illusion of self-evident equivalence, and the imperative to ensure complete semantic, systemic, and functional-legal accuracy. This study proposes a comprehensive six- part typology of translation risk specifically adapted to judicial discourse: lexical, semantic, functional, terminological- systemic, contextual, and institutional. Through contrastive analysis of procedural formulas, judicial collocations, and terminological series (such as рішення, ухвала / решение, определение; провадження / производство, позивач / истец, as well as formulas like задовольнити позов / удовлетворить иск and залишити без розгляду / оставить без рассмотрения), the research demonstrates that the primary unit of judicial translation is often not an isolated term, but an entire procedural construction. Furthermore, the paper distinguishes between the risk mechanisms inherent in oral court interpreting (driven by strict time constraints and real-time decision-making) and those in written judicial translation (driven by overreliance on dictionary definitions without verifying functional collocations). Practical strategies and a pedagogical algorithm for risk management in training future court interpreters are outlined to facilitate the transition from superficial structural similarity to functional-legal equivalence.