Since July of this year, the Ukrainian Agri Council, with the support of the USAID Agriculture Growing Rural Opportunities Activity in Ukraine (AGRO) has been conducting a campaign to inform and support agricultural producers regarding the recording of damages caused by the Russian’s military aggression. One of the important stages on the way to the correct documentation of crimes was the presentation of the Interactive map of destruction in the Ukrainian agricultural sector on November 2, 2022.

So, before the full-scale war, the share of agricultural production in the country's GDP was 10%, and taking into account the processing industry - 16%. At the same time, the total losses due to direct damage in the Ukraine’s agricultural sector amounted to $30 billion. This was stated by Serhii Kubakh, the Land reform team lead at the USAID Agriculture Growing Rural Opportunities (AGRO) Activity in Ukraine, during the presentation of the interactive map of the damages to the Ukrainian agricultural sector.

"Agro-industrial complex is one of the leaders of Ukraine’s economy. Agricultural trade brought Ukraine more than $22 billion with account for 41% of its total exports. According to various estimates, the direct losses the agricultural sector amount to more than $6 billion, the total losses amounted to more than $30 billion. More than 5% of the land fund was damaged, which is more than 2 million hectares of land," said Serhii Kubakh.

For every crime committed by Russia against Ukraine, the occupiers must be punished, including the compensation for the damages caused by the war, said the head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration, Yaroslav Yanushevych. To do this, farmers need helped to collect professionally evidence of destruction and damage and submit it to international courts.

"About 60% of agricultural enterprises of the Kherson region were damaged or destroyed. One of the common problems for producers is land’s damage and a large amount of explosives in the fields. 70% of the region's agricultural lands need demining and appropriate restoration. Only in the last month, the Defense Forces of Ukraine almost doubled the de-occupied part of Kherson region. We, as Ukrainian authorities’ representatives, immediately began solving the problems of demining, providing farmers with everything necessary for carrying out spring sowing. We also help record the crimes. For this purpose, we are resuming the work of law enforcement agencies of Ukraine. We are obliged to help the farmers to collect all the evidence of the criminal activities of the occupiers for the international courts," said the head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration, Yaroslav Yanushevych.

Now, farmers can add all documented crimes to the Interactive Map. These data will be useful, as an example, to Ukrainian agricultural producers to correctly record their own losses, as well as to the international community to understand the extent of the damage caused by the Russian invasion. Based on the collected data, world organizations will be able to make political and legal decisions regarding reparations in the future, and investment and charity funds will be able to join the restoration of agricultural enterprises.

"The modern world has not known such a scale of war. Thus the damages caused by it. International lawyers do not have a single approach, how to prove committed crimes in courts. The interactive map is a tool that collects all the information about the affected agricultural enterprises in Ukraine and is constantly updated," said Deputy Chairman of the UAC Dmytro Kokhan.

Agricultural enterprises can participate in the collection of the evidence base on war crimes at the resource - agrirecovery.com.ua .

In addition, for the correct recording of losses, the UAC together with the USAID Agriculture Growing Rural Opportunities (AGRO) Activity have developed a methodology.

Detailed instructions on how to correctly document damage and lost profits are available at the following link:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1XDL55-uTEjkq38h0D4GFfYEc2sWi9GsP?hl=ru

"The UAC team, together with USAID-AGRO, Ukraine’s legal companies and the world, developed methodological recommendations. This is a certain list of rules and actions that must be taken by the enterprise in order to document destruction on the territory of the farm. In the future, the materials will make it possible to claim compensation fronnm the Russian Federation in Ukrainian and international courts," Dmytro Kokhan added.

Simultaneously , a free consulting for affected farmers works. Today, about 100 agricultural enterprises have already addressed to specialists of the contact center.

 For questions and assistance in fixing losses, call +38 067 503 19 08.

The event was possible thanks to the generous support of the American people provided through the USAID’s Agriculture Growing Rural Opportunities Activity (AGRO) implemented by Chemonics International. The authors’ views do not necessarily reflect the view of USAID or the United States Government.