When will Register of Damage start working and how will Ukrainians be able to receive compensation from Russia?

The West is working right now, without waiting for Ukraine's victory, on mechanisms aimed at compelling Russia to pay for the destruction caused by the war. One of them is the Register of Damage Caused by the Aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, created in The Hague as an international organisation.

Its task is to lay the groundwork for compensating average Ukrainians and Ukrainian companies.

Sergiy Sydorenko, EuroPravda's editor, spoke with the Executive Director of the Register of Damage, Markiyan Kliuchkovskyi, about it. Read the prime points by Kliuchkovskyi below.

We are an organisation created under the umbrella of the Council of Europe. The task is to register claims for compensation for the damage caused by the Russian Federation on Ukraine, Ukrainians, and Ukrainian companies through its war in Ukraine.

Our task is to register these claims so that later, when an appropriate mechanism is developed, those who have suffered from the war can receive compensation from Russia for the incurred losses.

The Register is an institution that helps applicants gather and submit evidence, then filters them, and where the claim meets the criteria, records the submitted claims.

These statements and evidence can be submitted by individuals, companies, and the Ukrainian state for all material and non-material damage caused to them by the Russian war in Ukraine.

The end of March or the beginning of April is the approximate time when we expect to be ready to start accepting applications.

We will start with applications from those who have suffered the most from the war, as well as applications for the restoration of critical infrastructure.

And then these applications will await "substantive consideration" by the Compensation Commission. This institution is yet to be created. It will determine the compensation to be paid by Russia.

Negotiations on the creation of the Compensation Commission are still ongoing.

In modern history, there have been no examples of creating such bodies without the consent of the other party (i.e., Russia) or without a decision of the UN Security Council (i.e., again, Russia).

We will be the first though.

International law states that a state that violates international law has an obligation to pay reparations. So, Ukraine and like-minded states argue that this is sufficient to create a "compensation body" without the violator's consent. Russia is obliged to compensate Ukraine and Ukrainians for all the damage caused.

Of course, Russia should have paid on its own.

But we are far from illusions, so from the beginning, we are working on Plan B, looking at around $300 billion of Russian sovereign funds frozen in various countries worldwide.

Our Plan B is to find legal and political grounds to use these funds. And this is even more difficult than creating a compensation commission. The process will take time.

I think it will take years.

I believe that the Register will start working and compensations will be paid to Ukrainians.

As for the first compensation payments, I can only say: I think it will not happen this year.

We will be lucky if it happens next year. It would be a great success.