Russia-Ukraine War Reparations: Russian Government and Putin Team Must Be Held Financially Responsible for Every Death and Injury, and All Property Damage From Illegal War Against Ukraine

(SCW 3.23.22) While it is ultimately impossible to place a financial value on human life, there needs to be an effort to precisely document each death, both Ukrainian and Russian, as well as each instance of property damage caused by Russian President Vladimir Putin's unlawful war against Ukraine.

There needs to be a running tally of how much, in the form of money damages, needs to be extracted from Putin and his henchmen's personal assets, and Russian national resources, to pay compensation and restitution.

And paying in rubles will not suffice. The presence of big-money items around the world, connected to the parties responsible, represent a start for attaching assets. In the end, in addition to financial actions, it might be necessary for a successor Russian government to permit international peacekeepers to control major Russian national resources, such as oil and gas fields, to ensure that resources are mobilized to generate revenue that can be diverted towards war reparations.

The Russian government and Putin himself, as well as his key henchmen, need to be financially responsible to pay restitution and compensation for each loss of life, in addition to damages for physical and mental injuries, pain and suffering of survivors, including those forced to flee as refugees.

Considering that substantial portions of the Russian people never authorized or supported the illegal military actions, fairness dictates that personal wealth of Putin and his key people be tapped and drained first.

Because Putin has sought to restore creeping Communism by exerting greater and greater state control, and control by cronies, over key industries such as oil, gas, and natural resources, those national assets will have to be tapped, so to speak, their revenues garnished.

Ukraine and its people can never be made whole to make up entirely for the ridiculously pointless harms caused by Putin and his henchmen, yet massive money damages are a start.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has gone on for nearly eight years now, including the illegal invasion and occuption of Crimea and the ongoing, relentless hybrid Russian military operations in the Donbas, followed by the current escalation. All of those years of attacks and misconduct need to be factored in. Interestingly enough, the Kremlin's illegal occupation of Crimea also gave it control over bases on Ukrainian territory that the Kremlin had agreed to lease before simply stealing the land outright.

Another curious twist to the Russian governmental illegality surrounds nuclear weapons. As a major component of the old Soviet Union, Ukraine hosted a significant number of Soviet nuclear weapons. As a free country, Ukraine held one of the world's largest nuclear arsenals.

The Ukrainians gave up their nuclear arsenal voluntarily, in exchange for legally binding treaty promises that their territory would not be invaded and that they would not even be threatened. Russia signed the treaty.

So that treaty violation adds to the illegality of the Putin war, along with him committing the international crime of aggression, along with whatever more specifically focused war crimes he has carried out, such as the deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian structures.

Either way, the entire war is illegal, and Putin and his henchmen should be held financially liable, as well as criminally culpable and unfit to hold government positions or stand as statesmen within the world community.

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The "SCW Thought-Starters Series" is intended as a beginning of inquiry, and invitation for further research, analysis and reflection.

Key Words: Russia, Putin, Kremlin, War Reparations, Ukraine, Russo-Ukrainian War, War Crimes, International Law, Corruption, Oligarchs, Russian Government