Ukraine’s expanded damage register records losses before a payment mechanism exists

The intake system now covers people and organisations

On 8 September, the Register opened its final four categories for individuals: other violations of international human rights or humanitarian law, other economic losses, loss of access to healthcare and loss of access to education. The change means that claimants are no longer limited to the earlier categories covering such harms as death, injury, displacement, damaged homes, torture or deprivation of liberty.

Two days later, it opened the final three categories for legal entities: relocation or evacuation costs, other economic losses and humanitarian expenditure. These additions are important for companies and organisations whose wartime losses do not fit neatly into physical property damage. They also create a place to preserve evidence of the wider costs imposed by Russia’s aggression.

The Register’s 15 September update shows that the enlarged system is being used at scale. It reported nearly 200,000 claims received and more than 65,000 entered in the Register. During a recent series of decisions, its Board recorded another 7,672 claims and made its first recording decisions in categories covering torture or inhuman treatment, deprivation of liberty, and loss of assets by legal entities.

Recording is not adjudication

Those numbers measure intake and eligibility processing, not findings that Russia owes a particular claimant a particular amount. The Register checks whether a submission falls within its mandate and preserves the claim and supporting evidence. It does not decide compensation or make payments.

The mandate covers damage, loss or injury caused by Russia’s internationally wrongful acts in or against Ukraine from 24 February 2022. Its territorial scope includes Ukraine’s internationally recognised territory, territorial waters, exclusive economic zone and continental shelf. It also covers harmful acts against Ukrainian aircraft and vessels outside those zones. Individuals, legal entities, Ukrainian state and local authorities, and state-owned or controlled enterprises can submit claims. That scope can create a coherent evidence base for a later adjudicator, but the evidence base is not itself an award.

“A received claim, a recorded claim, a future award and a payment remain four different stages.”

The gap between nearly 200,000 claims received and more than 65,000 recorded should not be treated as an approval rate or proof of delay. The published figures do not give processing times, rejection totals or claimant demographics. They show a large intake and a substantial body of claims that have passed the Register’s recording stage.

The adjudicator still needs to enter into force

The Netherlands deposited its ratification of the Claims Commission convention on 15 September. According to the Council of Europe, there are 40 signatories, while nine states and the European Union have ratified. The convention requires 25 qualifying ratifications and sufficient startup financing before it enters into force.

Once established, the commission would examine claims and determine compensation. That would turn registered evidence into decisions, but it would still not solve payment. The compensation mechanism was designed in three separate parts: the existing Register, the future Claims Commission and a compensation fund that still has to be created.

The convention also addresses a possible future Russian role. Under Article 28, Russia could accede only on condition that it attach a declaration to its instrument of accession. That declaration must accept responsibility for damage, loss and injury within the Commission’s mandate, commit to honour compensation decisions and provide the means to pay them, and commit to reimburse members and, where applicable, observers for their contributions to the Commission’s costs. Russia has not done this, so the provision is not a current payment route.

Proposals involving frozen Russian assets should therefore not be written as though they were an agreed funding source. They remain proposals, and payment arrangements are still unresolved. Even valid awards could remain unpaid without a financed compensation fund or Russia fulfilling its Article 28 obligations.

September’s changes have therefore produced a fuller evidence-recording system, not an operating compensation route. That judgment would change when the Claims Commission convention reaches its ratification and financing thresholds, the commission begins deciding claims, and money becomes available through a funded compensation mechanism or Russia fulfilling its Article 28 obligations. Until those conditions are met, claimants can submit and preserve evidence, but they cannot move from a recorded claim to compensation through this international mechanism.