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Will Russia pay Ukraine damages?

The UN general assembly in November called for Russian reparations for the damages and deaths caused by the invasion. The resolution isn’t legally binding, though, and Russia is opposed to it.

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If Russia did pay up, it wouldn’t be unprecedented. At the end of World War I, the German Reich was deemed guilty and made to pay, according to the Treaty of Versailles, more than 200 billion gold marks over decades. Some experts say that decimated the economy and even led to World War II. At the end of the second world war, Germany and other axis powers were made to pay reparations, but this time the narrative wasn’t about shouldering blame. It was more about helping rebuild damaged infrastructure in Europe.

More recently, in the early 90s, Iraq had to pay reparations for the occupation of Kuwait—although this was a consequence of a legally-binding UN Security Council resolution.

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