European leaders have agreed to create a new international body to assess and award compensation to Ukraine for the vast destruction caused by Russia’s war, marking one of the most concrete steps yet toward holding Moscow financially accountable.
The International Claims Commission for Ukraine was formally established at a conference in The Hague after a treaty was signed by 35 countries. The Netherlands based commission will review and rule on claims for war related damage, potentially unlocking hundreds of billions of dollars in reparations.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who attended the summit alongside senior European officials, said accountability was essential to ending the conflict. Making Russia pay for the harm caused by the invasion was “exactly where the real path to peace begins,” he said, adding that global rules must be enforced so that “others learn not to choose aggression.”
The new body will operate under the coordination of the 46 member Council of Europe and build on earlier groundwork already in place. About two years ago, participating countries launched a Register of Damages to document losses suffered by Ukraine. That register has already received more than 80,000 claims, according to officials involved in the process.
The commission’s task will be to evaluate those claims and determine compensation amounts. How the payments will ultimately be made has not yet been settled. European Union officials have been debating whether frozen Russian assets could be used as a funding source, possibly alongside contributions from member states.
The EU has frozen hundreds of billions of euros in Russian central bank and private assets since the invasion began. Some governments are pushing to repurpose those funds to support Ukraine’s defense and reconstruction, while others have warned of legal and financial risks.
Dutch Foreign Minister David van Weel described the creation of the commission as “a big step,” stressing that reparations would be central to any lasting settlement. His comments come as EU leaders prepare for a summit later this week where the fate of frozen Russian assets is expected to dominate discussions.
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One proposal under review would see the EU arrange a large loan for Kyiv that would eventually be repaid using future Russian reparations. Belgium has expressed reservations about the idea. The country hosts Euroclear, the financial services firm that holds the majority of the frozen Russian funds, and officials there have warned of possible legal exposure.
The scale of the challenge is enormous. The World Bank estimates that rebuilding Ukraine after damage inflicted up to December 2024 will cost about 524 billion dollars. That figure is nearly three times the size of Ukraine’s economic output in that year and does not include the impact of Russia’s intensified attacks on energy networks and other critical infrastructure in 2025.
The commission was launched as part of a broader diplomatic push led by the United States to end the war. President Donald Trump said this week that a negotiated agreement was “closer than ever” following talks with leaders from Ukraine, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and NATO.
As legal work begins in The Hague, European officials say the commission is meant to send a long term signal that the costs of the war will not disappear with a ceasefire.
