One of the newer organisations in The Hague has come into being over the last year. The Register of Damages in Ukraine has an office and a portal for claims. It also has a board and an executive director. It’s been set up under the auspices of the Council of Europe. 

And in the end, the idea is not only a registry of damages but also a claims commission; full reparations for Ukrainians – between six and eight million claims overall.

The Board of the Register of Damages has been meeting regularly in The Hague. Now there are also categories for people to register their harm like involuntary displacement outside of Ukraine, torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, sexual violence etc.

At the end of the day, it’s international law that lays out what can be compensated and what is linked closely enough to Russian aggression. But the aim of a future claims commission is very broad and comprehensive.

So how does it work in practice? Stephanie met with Executive Director Markiyan Kliuchkovskyi to find out.

Markiyan told us that he’s thinking a lot about Artificial Intelligence. “If we are successful,” he says “we will have, let’s say, six million claims with six files per claim. That’s 36 million files to go through. Obviously it’s not possible to do it manually. So we have to rely on modern tools. And AI is is part of that.” So he’s a big tech podcast listener.