KSE Institute (think tank at the Kyiv School of Economics) together with the Office of the President of Ukraine and the Ministry of Economy launched the project “Russia will pay”. The aim of this project is to collect information about damaged objects and the objects that have been destroyed during the war started by Russia against Ukraine.

Using a specially created website https://damaged.in.ua/ everyone can add information about the damage caused by the war against Ukraine. In the future, this information will be used by the Ukrainian government as evidence in international courts to force Russia to compensate damages.

“In just 10 days of the war, more than 1,400 civilians died in Ukraine, including more than 50 children. A lot of important infrastructure objects, dozens of schools, hospitals, bridges, airports, roads, more than 1,600 houses, as well as the world’s largest aircraft “Mriya” were destroyed or damaged. We will not be able to bring back the lives of our citizens who died in this war. But we will definitely win and rebuild our Ukraine. And the aggressor must take responsibility for all the losses: lost lives, destroyed buildings, mutilated fates. And for this, we need to record as fully and systematically as possible all the damage caused to our country by the aggressor,” Yulia Svyridenko, First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Minister of Economy said.

“The portal https://damaged.in.ua/ focuses on collecting information on physical losses of state infrastructure and houses of our citizens. This portal logically fills up our joint efforts to record violations of the rights of our citizens by the Russian aggressor, as well as Russia’s war crimes against Ukraine, which are currently being collected and systematized by the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Prosecutor General’s Office. All this information will help us, as the state, to work systematically both on compensation from the aggressor and on the reconstruction of the country after the war,” Yulia Sokolovska, Deputy Head of the President’s Office admitted.

“Now while Ukrainians from the Armed Forces and the Territorial Defense Forces are defending the borders of our country and our cities and villages, and Ukrainian officials are preparing for numerous international trials against Russia, our task is to make a complete list of all buildings and things destroyed in the war that was started by Russia against Ukraine”, Natalia Shapoval, Head of the KSE Institute noted.

The resource https://damaged.in.ua/ already contains information about damaged infrastructure, houses during the first 14 days of the war. It was collected by the KSE team and volunteers and it is based on an analysis of more than 1,800 reports from citizens, the government, and local authorities about losses and damage across the country.

In particular, according to the latest information, at least 200 educational institutions, 30 health care facilities, 8 churches, 1,600 residential buildings, 19 office buildings, 23 factories / storages, 12 airports, 5 thermal power stations / hydroelectric power stations, etc. have been damaged and / or completely destroyed. In addition, more than 15,000 kilometers of roads, 5,000 kilometers of railways, 12 airports, 350 bridges and bridge crossings, etc. were destroyed / disabled.

According to the preliminary estimate of KSE, the total value of damaged / destroyed objects in case of their complete destruction can be up to 1.5 trillion hryvnias or up to $54.3 billion. However, the cost of repairing these losses is likely to be much higher, as it will be necessary to dismantle the destroyed buildings / structures and totally rebuild a significant number of them.

These estimates are not comprehensive, as the information on numerous damages and destructions may be missing due to the lack of possibility of citizens, local and state authorities to promptly record the damage in each city, town, villages, etc.

Also, this assessment does not include information about damage of natural resources, livestock farming, reserves of companies (in warehouses, shops, etc.), movable property, military property, property of telecom operators, etc. caused by hostilities, mining.

That is why the resource https://damaged.in.ua/ was created. Using it everyone can also add data on damaged buildings, factories, roads and other objects. It is very important to add the true information in a structural way. It helps the information to be used. In particular, you need to fill in the form on the portal in as much detail as possible, add videos and photos of the object and, if possible, the contacts of witnesses.

The information about damages can also be submitted via the chatbot https://t.me/Damage_in_ua_bot.

Anyone who provides information about the destruction will be guaranteed data confidentiality. Also, information about specific destructions will not be published. Only generalized statistics will be publicly available during martial law.

All provided information on losses will be further checked and verified by a team of analysts.