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Background Access to justice, enshrined as a fundamental human right in international conventions, includes the right to a fair trial and to just compensation. This dimension of justice is particularly crucial in contexts of armed conflict, where victims of military aggression require effective reparation mechanisms. Historically, both judicial and quasi-judicial bodies have been created to address mass claims, from restitution in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Kuwait to processes in post-authoritarian or post-communist states. Such mechanisms highlight the need for specialised institutions, as ordinary courts are often unable to manage the volume and complexity of conflict-related claims. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, reparations have become central to legal and political debate. Methods This study employed an empirical approach, combining systematic data collection with comparative legal analysis. Sources included UN and Council of Europe acts, reports by international organisations (CoE, OSCE), NGO publications, and scholarly works. Three compensation models were examined in depth: the UN Compensation Commission, Kosovo property claims mechanisms, and Bosnia’s Commission for Real Property Claims. These were selected for their effectiveness, European relevance, and addressed harms. Comparative analysis evaluated their procedures, accessibility, and recognition of harm, contrasted with Ukraine’s emerging compensation mechanism. Results The study highlights lessons from the UNCC, Kosovo, and Bosnia, focusing on mandates, procedures, accessibility, and types of harm recognised. It identifies best practices and challenges, offering comparative insights for designing Ukraine’s future compensation system. Conclusions International commissions share key features: defined jurisdiction, politically sensitive and lengthy processes, and reliance on transparent procedures to ensure legitimacy. For Ukraine, enabling direct individual claims is essential to uphold the right to reparation. Yet enforcement challenges and risks of duplicative proceedings remain. Adapting global experience to Ukraine’s context is crucial for developing an effective and trusted compensation mechanism.

Russia's illegal, brazen and cynical full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on February 24th, 2022, and is still ongoing at the time of this research (July 2023). The damages incurred by Ukraine and its citizens during the years of occupation of the territories and the war are calculated in millions, although it is difficult to definitively determine both the methodology and specific numbers. To restore justice, it seems much more important to define a fair, transparent, and understandable procedure for compensating the losses suffered by citizens and businesses as a result of these events. This is especially important in the context of the need to implement the goals of sustainable development, in particular, ensuring equal access to justice for all. The article is devoted to these and related issues. To determine the procedure for compensating losses and damages caused by the war, we first determined what exactly can be compensated and who can apply for compensation. These and other factors determine the peculiarities of the procedure for the restoration of rights and compensation for damage caused by the war in Ukraine. In searching for an answer to the researched question, we analyzed the current legislation of Ukraine and draft laws proposed to regulate relations related to compensation for damages. We also conducted a comprehensive analysis of concepts such as losses, damages, compensation, reparations, and reimbursement as defined in national legislation and international treaties. The generalization of the case law of national courts (more than 200 analyzed decisions of the courts of the first and appeal and cassation instances for the period from February 20, 2014 to March 1, 2023, examples of which are presented in the study) indicates the presence of various approaches of compensation for damage, in understanding how to restore the violated rights of citizens.

Russia’s audacious, unprecedented, illegal invasion of Ukraine, which began in a hybrid form in February 2014 before escalating into a full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, has brought with it a significant amount of destruction, multibillion-dollar losses, and damage beyond measure – both to the whole state and to each individual Ukrainian resident. As a result of Russian aggression, thousands of civilians have been killed, dozens of cities have been damaged by shelling and airstrikes, and countless enterprises, medical institutions, educational institutions, cultural heritage monuments, kilometres of road, and residential buildings have been destroyed. The war continues, meaning that the damage caused to Ukraine by Russia is steadily increasing with each new day. Since the beginning of the full-scale war, one of the most important tasks has been to find ways and means for post-war reconstruction in Ukraine, as well as for the payment of compensation to the victims of the war. These compensation mechanisms should be implemented alongside those that come at the expense of the funds of the Russian Federation, which, accordingly, necessitates the lawful capture of these funds from an array of possible sources (sovereign assets of the Russian Federation, the assets of Russian oligarchs, etc.). After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, civilized countries froze the assets of the external foreign exchange reserve of the central bank of the Russian Federation, along with the private assets of Russian oligarchs. After freezing assets, the next step on the path towards transferring to Ukraine the assets and funds of the Russian Federation (both sovereign assets and those of private persons), which are located in many countries around the world, should be their confiscation, since freezing alone is not an effective measure. An important task is to help states take this step and develop appropriate confiscation mechanisms in their national legislation. This article is devoted to the study of this issue, as well as to the comparative analysis of that which has already been achieved in this field.