A consortium of Ukrainian and international lawyers is preparing to launch a massive civilian legal action against the Russian state, as well as private military contractors and businessmen who support the Russian war effort, in an attempt to obtain a financial compensation for millions of Ukrainian war victims. , the Guardian may reveal.
The team, made up of hundreds of lawyers and several major law firms, plans to take “multiple actions in different jurisdictions against different goals,” including the United Kingdom and the United States, said Jason McCue, a lawyer. based in London coordinating the initiative. , in an interview in Kyiv.
The plan is to use the lawsuits of the United Kingdom and the United States to confiscate Russian assets around the world.
Targets are likely to include the Russian state and private military contractors such as the Wagner Group, which is believed to have been active in Ukraine. But McCue said they would also include business figures linked to those contractors and, more broadly, the Russian war effort. He believes that assets that have already been affected by sanctions as well as those that have not will be prosecuted.
The class action will be a private case, independent of the Ukrainian state. But according to McCue, they will need access to Ukraine’s tests and intelligence.
Ukrainian MP and businessman Serhiy Taruta supports the initiative by facilitating meetings of lawyers and investigators with Ukrainian officials.
Taruta, who is from Mariupol and had investments in the city, lost much of his business when Russia and its proxy forces took over more than half of the Donbas region in 2014. This time he lost friends, he said. leagues and a cousin when Russia destroyed. Mariupol while trying to occupy it.
“Ukrainians have waited 20 years to be prosecuted [Pavlo] Lazarenko, and now eight for MH17, “Taruta said, referring to a case against the former Prime Minister of Ukraine that embezzled millions and an ongoing case in The Hague for the slaughter of a Malaysian Airlines flight in 2014.
“We need to develop a faster mechanism [for compensation]”Normal routes are too slow,” Taruta said.
Ukraine has already begun prosecuting Russian soldiers captured for war crimes in criminal cases, and other war crimes cases can be tried later in international courts. But claims for war damages are more complicated, and McCue said part of the idea behind the quick launch of the case was because state-to-state-level repairs are seldom possible.
“Often, when it comes to negotiations, the issue of reparations is set aside to focus on the sustainability of peace,” he said.
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According to Taruta, people who have suffered the loss of a loved one or property or who have been injured will be the main recipients of compensation, followed by state and local institutions, and only then companies. He estimated the total potential claim could not be less than $ 1 million (£ 793.9 billion).
Several teams of researchers have joined to help the team find assets of businessmen who believe they are complicit in Russia’s war effort. Among them is Bellingcat, which has been investigating the activities of the Wagner Group and other Russian private military contractors for some years.
“We are closely monitoring the activity of Russian mercenary units in Ukraine,” said Christo Grozev, Bellingcat’s chief executive.
“We believe in a deep dive into the [Wagner Group’s] The chain of command and its links with Russian official authorities would not only help bring justice to the victims and their families, but also bring more public awareness and transparency to how Russia is waging this war, “he said. Grozev.
A key part of the case will be advocating that the invasion of Russia is not only an aggressive war, but is also at least partially included under the legal definition of terrorism, which would make it easier to pursue the assets.
“All the legal teams in different countries are happy that we have what we need,” McCue said. “It’s very solid.”
McCue has extensive experience in similar small-scale cases, the first of which was won on behalf of the victims of the 1998 Omagh bombing, in which four men were found responsible for the attack and ordered to pay compensation to the families of the victims.
“The evidence was with the police, but no one was prosecuting them because of the peace process,” said McCue, who described how the families approached him. “So we did a civil action and we won, and we managed to get two of them out of the houses.”
The case of Ukraine, which is much larger in scale, is likely to work with similar principles, although it will be more focused on earning financial compensation for people who have suffered the loss of their loved ones, property or business. .
“The Omagh case was not about money, it was about proving who did it. This case is about money, “McCue said.
He admitted that there would be a huge amount of work in advance to verify and classify cases and create a “victim hierarchy”, and that the figures pointed out are likely to work hard to move or cover their assets. Still, he said he believed the case had a good chance of success.
“What we do know is that if we don’t do that, people are less likely to get something. That increases the chances,” he said.