Ukraine: Compensating Survivors of War Crimes
Up to 10 million applications are expected to be submitted to the International Register of Damages.
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Lyudmila Huseynova was held captive by Russian-backed militants for a total of three years and 13 days after being detained for her pro-Ukrainian activism.
Originally from the border town of Novoazovsk, occupied since the start of the war in the Donbas in 2014, she had worked to help resettle internally displaced persons and supply children in Russian-occupied territory with shoes, clothing and Ukrainian books.
In October 2019, she was arrested and taken to the Izoliatsia prison in Donetsk, before being transferred to a local pre-trial detention centre where she was charged with espionage.
Released in October 2022 and repatriated to Ukraine-controlled territory as part of a prisoners exchange, Huseynova, now 61, was among the first tranche of survivors to be awarded damages as part of a pilot project launched by the Ukrainian authorities and funded by foreign governments.
Lyudmila Huseynova was feature in this short documentary by Lesya Kharchenko and Zhenya Pedin, from November 2022.
The scheme applies only to survivors of sexual violence, some 430 of whom received interim compensation of 3,000 euros (3,150 US dollars) each.
Huseynova said that she had not been initially aware that under international law, sexual violence in wartime also includes threats of rape, forced nudity and witnessing of abuse.
“When you are released, you don't even realize that what was done to you in captivity is a crime,” she continued. “And it’s not just about the restriction of freedom. It’s about how you were undressed, what they said to you, how you were watched around the clock. There were surveillance cameras everywhere, you had to wash and take care of your basic needs under those cameras, and only men were watching you.”
The pilot project is being implemented by the Global Fund for Survivors of Violence under a framework agreement signed in December 2023. The fund is supported by foreign countries and has now been extended, allowing an additional 1,000 applicants to receive interim reparations. It applies to all wartime sexual violence committed since the Russian invasion of 2014.
Applications are received by a case manager, who can communicate with applicants, clarify information or request additional data. The case manager then anonymises the file before it is submitted to the commission for revision, which then verifies it and decides whether the applicant qualifies for compensation.
In total, 646 people applied to the register in 2024, including 377 men, 255 women and 14 children. The large number of applications from men are attributed to the fact that the process is anonymous.
Nearly three years after Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukraine provides compensation only to individuals who have experienced sexual violence. Khrystyna Kit, the head of the Ukrainian Women Lawyers Association and coordinator of an expert group at the prosecutor general’s office, told IWPR last year that this crime had been prioritised because “survivors of sexual violence cannot wait for the end of the war. The longer they are left without support, the more the trauma of their experience deepens”.
However, the recent launch of the International Register of Damage for Ukraine will expand the range of abuses which will be liable for compensation.
The Hague-based Register was established by the Council of Europe in May 2023 and launched in April 2024 in accordance with a November 2022 UN general assembly resolution. To date, 43 states and the EU have joined the register.
Claims can now be submitted for over 40 categories of crime, including deaths, torture, sexual violence, bodily harm, forced displacement, property loss, damage to infrastructure, and harm to cultural and historical heritage as well as environmental destruction.
Individuals can only report damages resulting from the full-scale Russian invasion, a time limit criticised by human rights advocates for excluding those who suffered from Russian aggression in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts as well as in Crimea since 2014.
As of the end of December 2024, the Register had received approximately 13,000 applications, with a total value of 800 million euros (841m dollars), although the process was temporarily suspended following a massive cyberattack on Ukrainian state registers.
The Register is also open to individuals who lost family members due to the full-scale invasion to apply for compensation for emotional distress.
According to Markiyan Kliuchkovskyi, executive director of the Register, more than 400 applications in this category were registered during the first two days of the body’s operation, and he is confident that the number will grow significantly.
This is currently a data collection phase, while next steps will involve forming a commission to review applications and replenish the fund from which payments will be made. Up to 10 million applications are expected to be submitted to the Register in total.
Huseynova and others who have already received compensation from survivors of sexual violence fund will also be able to apply for future reparations as part of the Registry's work.
Ukraine has yet to present an integrated strategy for reparations, given parallel processes including numerous civil cases. Ongoing discussions include the transfer of Russian assets frozen in the EU or US, but no consensus has been reached.
As noted on the website of the Register, the budget is funded through annual mandatory and voluntary contributions from participating countries and associate members. The initial launch costs of the Register were covered by voluntary contributions from the Netherlands and the EU.
Experts note that the process will be far from straightforward, given the legal complexity of many of the cases.
“Not everyone affected by the war will have the status of a victim of war crimes, as it must be proven that the target was a specific civilian object or individual,” said Oleksandr Pavlichenko, executive director of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union.
“These cases will be debated for a long time. I assume there will be differing opinions among attorneys and legal experts regarding what enemy’s targets or intentions were. For instance, was the goal to deliberately strike Okhmatdyt [the Kyiv children’s hospital bombed in July 2024]? Or, in cases where a missile was intercepted and its debris fell on a residential building, would that qualify as a war crime? Each specific case will need to be carefully analysed.”
