Mass civil legal action to seek compensation for Ukrainian war victims

A consortium of Ukrainian and international lawyers is preparing to launch a mass civil legal action against the Russian state, as well as private military contractors and businesspeople backing the Russian war effort, in an attempt to gain financial compensation for millions of Ukrainian victims of the war, the Guardian can reveal.

The plan is to use UK and US judgments to seize Russian assets across the globe.

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 these contractors, and to the Russian war effort more broadly. He believes that it will be possible to go after assets that have already been hit by sanctions as well as those that have not.

The Ukrainian MP and businessman Serhiy Taruta is supporting the initiative by facilitating meetings for the lawyers and investigators with Ukrainian officials.

Taruta, who is from Mariupol and had investments in the city, lost a large chunk of his business when Russia and its proxy forces took more than half of the Donbas region in 2014. This time he lost friends, colleagues and a cousin as Russia destroyed Mariupol while attempting to occupy it.

Ukraine has already begun prosecuting captured Russian soldiers for war crimes in criminal cases, and other war crime cases may later be tried in international courts. But claims for reparations for the war damage are trickier, and McCue said part of the idea behind speedily launching the case was because reparations on a state-to-state level are rarely possible.

According to Taruta, individuals who have suffered the loss of a loved one or property or who have been injured will be the primary recipients of the compensation, followed by state and local institutions, and only then businesses. He estimated the total potential claim could be no less than $1tn (£793.9bn).

McCue has extensive experience in similar cases on a smaller scale, the first of which was won on behalf of victims of the 1998 Omagh bombing, in which four men were found liable for the bombing and ordered to pay compensation to families of the victims.

The Ukraine case, which is much bigger in scale, is likely to operate on similar principles, though it will be more focused on winning financial compensation for people who have suffered the loss of their loved ones, property or businesses.