Ukraine to seek $564B in compensation from Russia

• Ukraine's Deputy PM Yuliya Sviridenko said Russia caused $564.9 billion in harm
• She claimed Russia should pay for Ukraine's post-war reconstruction
• This echoes Zelensky and the governor of Ukraine's national bank earlier this month

The Ukrainian government has stated that they will seek compensation of $564.9 billion from Russia for damages caused by the invasion in the aftermath of the war.

Since Russian troops entered the country on 24 February, Ukraine's deputy prime minister Yuliya Sviridenko announced today that $564.9 billion in damage has been sustained, reports The Daily Mail.

Sviridenko, also Ukraine's minister of economic development and commerce, stated in a Facebook post that the damage to her country's infrastructure alone was $119 billion, even before the war's financial impact on the economy, trade, and foreign investment had been evaluated.

She went on to say that 'the numbers are growing every day' and that 'Ukraine will seek reparations from the aggressor despite all the obstacles'.

Her promise to collect reparations comes after President Volodymyr Zelensky and the governor of Ukraine's national bank said their country 'should be rebuilt with Russian money' earlier this month.

 This is the sum of the losses that Ukraine has suffered since the Russian invasion,' Sviridenko announced today via her official Facebook page.

'There are at least two methods for calculating the losses. The first is from direct destruction; the second is the calculation of losses from the overall impact of hostilities, including the deteriorating economic situation in our country, rising unemployment, blocking trade, declining consumer demand and more.

The finance minister went on to reel off a list of eye-watering sums she said were the estimated financial losses inflicted on Ukraine by Russia's invasion, before adding: 'It is worth noting that every day the numbers change and, unfortunately, they are growing.

'That is why Ukraine, despite all obstacles, will seek compensation from the aggressor. Both by court decisions and by transferring to our state frozen assets of Russia.

'Evil will inevitably be punished and Russia will feel the full weight of its own criminal actions on the territory of Ukraine,' Sviridenko promised.

Many Ukrainian cities have been bombed indiscriminately by Russia, but the southern port city of Mariupol has been completely destroyed by Russian missile attacks and airstrikes for about a month.

President Zelensky promised on 3 March that Ukraine would be rebuilt with Russian funds, but the extent of the destruction to Mariupol and other towns since then is difficult to understand.

Vadym Boichenko, the mayor of Mariupol, declared this morning that the situation is so bad that the port city must be entirely evacuated.

Boichenko said 160,000 civilians trapped in the city are encircled by Russian forces, with ever-dwindling supplies of food, water and medicine, while hundreds of citizens have already perished.

Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs meanwhile said Russian troops are 'turning the city into dust', describing the situation in Mariupol as 'catastrophic' with people fighting to survive.

The governor of Ukraine's national bank, Kyrylo Shevchenko, also shares Zelensky and Sviridenko's sentiment that Russia should be made to pay reparations to Ukraine in the aftermath of the conflict.

In an interview earlier this month with the BBC, Shevchenko said some of the money for rebuilding could be supplied through multinational grants and foreign investment, but insisted that Russia should be forced to pay for the bulk of it.

Russia is though to have hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of funds stashed overseas which have been subject to US and EU economic sanctions as punishment for its invasion of Ukraine.

Schevchenko suggested these frozen funds could be funnelled towards the effort to rebuild Ukraine after the war.

'The need for money will be huge,' he told the BBC. 'It could be fulfilled through loans and grants from multinational organisations and direct help from other countries.

'However a large share of financing is needed to be obtained as a reparation from the aggressor, including funds that are currently frozen in our allied countries.'