[Wrocław, 18 April 2022]

International sanctions on Russian commerce should not be eased until all reparations are fully settled with Ukraine. All proceeds from Russia’s strategic revenue streams, such as oil and gas sales, should fall under international governance with the aim to fund the rebuilding of Ukraine and the reimbursement of all indirect costs of Putin's unprovoked war, such as the humanitarian aid given by Poland and the international community to Ukrainian refugees.

It is hard to comprehend the scale of damage already wreaked by Putin since 24 February. In human terms, apart from thousands of civilians and Ukrainian military killed and maimed, over 7.0m persons have been displaced internally and 4.6m abroad. Towns and cities have been reduced to rubble. Many bridges, roads and other elements of critical infrastructure have been totally destroyed. The Centre for Economic Policy Research estimate the cost of repairing this property damage as already up to €500bn ($540bn).

Reparations will of course not only need to cover direct rebuilding costs, but also $billions of punitive damages to compensate survivors for the rapes, torture, maiming and the wrongful deaths of their loved ones.

While rebuilding costs increase daily with Russian bombing and shelling, Ukraine's revenues are rapidly shrinking. Already a third of Ukrainian factories and businesses have been forced to close by the war, with the World Bank estimating that this will impact Ukraine's GDP by some -45% this year.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg and The Brookings Institution recently estimated that some $350 billion of Russian reserves are currently frozen by countries such as France, Germany, Japan and USA. Freezing Russian government assets is not enough. These should immediately and irrecoverably be confiscated, together with all Russian oligarchs' and commercial entities' assets, and directed towards reparations war reparations. It is heartening that an increasing number of Western politicians, including US Attorney General Merrick Garland, now support the idea of assets seized from Russian oligarchs being directly channeled to Ukraine.

Fast tracking Ukraine's membership of EU will make new resources, markets and supply chains available, and it should also help ensure that recovery funds are spent astutely, with local corruption kept in check. While temporary support from the free world will start tackling the rebuilding of Ukraine, it is Russia that needs to ultimately bear the full cost.

When designing the reparations regime, we will need to be conscious of historical precedents, such as 1919’s Treaty of Versailles, which humiliated Germany and became the recruitment banner for the emergent Nazi party. We thus need to agree on a mechanism by which Russia can compensate the world for its aggression in a way that does not alienate future generations and push them into sympathy with nationalist extremist agendas.
 
Do not feel sorry for ‘normal’ Russians. Many independent polls agree that over 70% of the Russian population supports Putin and the Ukrainian invasion. Even with national TV and radio under Kremlin’s control, Russians interested in the truth can easily source it through digital media or from their diaspora.

It is a lazy evasion of an uncomfortable truth to claim that this is one man’s war. Putin is merely a natural product of a morally bankrupt, imperialist and  nihilistic Russian society.

It is Russians – not Putin - who pull the triggers to rain shells, bombs and rockets on civilians. It is Russians – not Putin - who starve and maim children. It is Russians - not Putin - who gang rape Ukrainian women. Therefore it is the imperialist death cult that is today's Russia – not Putin - that the civilised world is at war with. There exists of course a minority of noble and righteous dissident Russians. It is up to them NOW to visibly distance themselves from what Russia has become and loudly declare that these atrocities are committed 'not in my name!'. And it should be up to them later to take over the control of Russia after Putin is defeated and brought to justice.