14
Examination of witness
Sophie Guelff.
Q11 The Chair: Thank you very much indeed. We are extremely pleased to welcome Sophie Guelff to present evidence to us today on the Convention establishing an International Claims Commission for Ukraine. Sophie, we have already had one session on this; we will be reporting relatively soon. It is very helpful to have someone from the FCDO to present on this point. My first question is about the efficacy of such a process—which has been a matter of discussion and committee members have their own views. Unless there is a high degree of enforceability, how useful is this? It might be helpful to articulate, from your point of view, the UK’s position on the value of the process itself. I am setting you up to some extent, but I would like to hear the Government’s view of what we do if we cannot take it to the ultimate conclusion.
Sophie Guelff: Absolutely. I will start by saying thank you very much to the Committee for having us here today. My name is Sophie Guelff and I am Director, Ukraine, in the FCDO.
The UK Government’s very clear position is that Russia should bear responsibility for the damage caused by its illegal invasion of Ukraine. The awful attacks that we saw again last night on Kyiv and across Ukraine underscore how important it is that we are able to do that, and the ongoing damage and cost that is borne by the civilians across Ukraine. Our position is that reparations are an important part of justice and will ultimately be part of a transition to a just and sustainable peace in Ukraine, and that compensation as and when we get there should be pursued through internationally agreed, legally sound mechanisms with broadly accepted legitimacy.
From the perspective of HMG, it is extremely important that as well as the immediate support that we are providing to Ukraine in its wartime needs and the pressure that we are putting on Russia to come to the negotiating table, we are working to make sure that the mechanisms are in place for accountability in the long-term. We see that as a broad package of processes. Today we are discussing the international compensation mechanism. There is also the work that we are doing with partners to establish the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, the work that we do with Ukraine to support its domestic accountability efforts and the support we give to the ICC. We see all of this as part of a bigger package.
On your question about the efficacy of such a process, we have been very clear throughout that the international compensation mechanism needs to be a stage-by-stage process because there are some complex issues involved and if we wait to resolve them all, it would be very difficult to make the progress that we will need towards a successful mechanism. Obviously, as you are aware and from the evidence that you received in the previous session, this is a three-part process. The first part of the process was establishing the Register of Damage. That has been in place since 2023. That has been a successful part of the process. It has already started being able to receive claims and to build a historical record of what has happened in Ukraine. We need that as close as possible to the crimes being committed, so that there is a very clear and authoritative historical record. Therefore, even the work that has happened so far is of inherent intrinsic value.
This next stage is to establish the Claims Commission, which is to make sure that there is a proper body in place that can assess the claims that have been made and determine a value of compensation that would be due in due course. Again, we know that there is then a longer-term question about compensation, but it is important that we continue to make progress towards a mechanism that can make sure that those claims are properly assessed. The final stage will be to agree a compensation mechanism. That will, necessarily, take time and it will not be straightforward, given the unique circumstances of this particular conflict, where we are starting the work on accountability before the conflict has ended. We recognise that that will be very challenging, but we nevertheless think that the progress that we are making in the meantime puts us in the best possible position to ensure accountability in the long-term.
The Chair: I absolutely feel that. It is essential that we first have a record of actions and then the principle of compensation. The final part is clearly something to pursue, but the very nature of these actions is very relevant in ensuring that people feel that there has been a proper record kept, which is extremely relevant. Thank you very much for that.
Q12 Baroness Blower: Thank you for being here, Sophie; that was a very interesting opening. The Convention, as we know, creates a governance structure for the Claims Commission, including the Council, which will exercise an oversight function. As I understand it, the first nine states to ratify will take a seat on the Council. Do the Government intend for the UK to secure membership of the Council of the Claims Commission? If so, at this stage, how would they think that they intend to use that position on the Council?
Sophie Guelff: Yes, the way the Council works is that initially there will be nine members at the point of entry into force of the Convention. It will subsequently grow in size. Once 30 members have ratified, it will grow to 12 members of the Council, and then 15 once 40 states have ratified, so it will grow over time and it will operate on a rotational basis. The first Council will be in place for three years and there will be rotations thereafter. The way that I understand that membership will work is that it is not necessarily automatically the first nine countries that have ratified, but that members who wish to be part of the Council can express a wish to do that, and their applications will be considered in order of ratification. It might be that the first nine do not want to all be members of the council, but obviously it is quite likely that they will. At the moment, six countries and institutions have ratified the convention—Estonia, Latvia, Ireland, Iceland, Ukraine and the EU. Our hope is to get through the process of ratification by the end of this year, which would put the UK as one of the earlier members ratifying. We do not know if that means that we will be in the first nine, but certainly if we are early enough in the process, we will be very interested in being part of the council and putting forward bid to be a member.
Regardless of what happens, we are very clear that we will be a very active part of the governance of the Claims Commission. We will do that through our seat in the Assembly and we will do that through the council if we are able to be a member. We will also do it through our seat on the Finance Committee, which we will have as a major contributor. Through all of that, regardless of which part of the architecture we are in, we will want to play, just as we have done with the Register of Damage, a very active role in shaping the rules of procedure and the operation of the Claims Commission, ensuring that it is operating in the most effective way possible and has everything that it needs in place to function.
Q13 Lord McDonald of Salford: Thank you, Sophie. Right now the Commission’s mandate is limited to damage, loss and injury resulting from Russia’s illegal acts since 24 February 2022, i.e. from the start of the latest phase of the conflict. Does the Government support extending the temporal scope to cover damage arising from the 2014 annexation of Crimea and invasion of the Donbas? If so, what would the practical and financial consequences be?
Sophie Guelff: I should start by saying that the UK Government are very clear that Russia’s aggression against Ukraine did not start in 2022 and that it was going on for some time before that, as Lord McDonald has set out. We recognise that there is strength of feeling, particularly in Ukraine, that damage since 2014 should be addressed. The international compensation mechanism as it is currently designed is anchored to February 2022 because that provides a clear starting point on which a broad international coalition can be built. We think that that is important to ensure that the mechanism can operate quickly, credibly and at scale.
Obviously there could be a conversation in due course once the treaty has entered into force about an amendment to the temporal scope. That would require agreement by all members and at the moment we think that that is quite unlikely, but it is something that we are willing to keep under review as the Claims Commission develops. It is not something that we can do now as we go through the entry-into-force process. If that did happen, however, we should be clear that there would be very significant practical and financial consequences. We would expect to see a very substantial increase in the volume and complexity of claims, which would in turn lead to a commensurate increase in the overall cost of operating the mechanism as well as the eventual compensation. There would probably be some significant practical issues in the way in which the Register of Damage has been set up, which is scoped from 2022. It would have to be opened to take claims from 2014. There would be some complexities in evidence gathering and in evidence on much older claims where it is much less recent. It is not straightforward at all, but something that we are committed to keeping under review as we develop the Claims Commission.
Lord Anderson of Swansea: There is an overwhelming moral case for going back to 2014, but do you accept that there are very strong practical difficulties in finding evidence for an occupied Crimea and occupied Donbas and that it will be extraordinarily difficult to locate areas of damage, which may make it impossible to find justice? If we seek to go back to 2014, the evidence will just not be available.
Sophie Guelff: Yes, that is a good example of why it would be significantly difficult to go back to 2014.
Baroness Lawlor: Could I add, if I may, that you would be dealing with a different international response in the earlier part, which would complicate matters? Have you thought that if that were to happen and you were to go back, you would need to set up an entirely different inquiry?
Sophie Guelff: It is not something that I am particularly expert on, so we might want to come back to you. Yes, it would be very complicated to extend the temporal scope to 2014. We know that there are some who are advocating strongly for that. That will be a debate that will continue to play out, but for the reasons that members have set out we do not think this is a straightforward decision. I come back to there being clear international consensus around the date in 2022. We have the UN General Assembly resolution that started the process of setting up the international compensation mechanism. There is a very clear starting point and a very clear basis for that international consensus that seems to us very important.
The Chair: However, it is not an irrelevant point. There is a clearly a moral—
Sophie Guelff: Of course there is a moral case.
The Chair: The view from the Government is that there are practicalities, but it is better to have a properly agreed process and get what is more documentable.
Sophie Guelff: Yes, absolutely.
Q14 Baroness Verma: The Claims Commission is the second component of the broader three-part architecture designed to ensure that Russia does pay compensation for its unlawful acts. What progress is being made towards the establishment of a compensation fund, given your earlier comments that it will be members on a committee who will start the process? Will the membership be the stalling point of getting everybody on before the compensation fund starts, or can that begin and what will the UK’s involvement be in it, whether they are in the first nine or not?
Sophie Guelff: On the setting up of the Claims Commission, the Council will be an important part of accepting the recommendations of the panels of commissioners who will make determinations about individual compensation claims. None of the members of the Claims Commission, apart from Russia, should it decide to join in due course, will be responsible for paying out compensation. That is very, very clear in the treaty. Therefore, the question of the compensation fund in a way is a separate one to the question of the treaty on the Claims Commission. It is not the case that we cannot start any conversations about compensation before the Claims Commission is up and running, but it is clearly a very difficult question that will take time. Therefore, it is important that we keep making progress with the Claims Commission while those conversations start to play out.
The honest answer on compensation is that the UK does not have a settled view on preferred funding or source. We are working with partners to explore the full range of options and to start to think those through, but there are quite complex practical and legal considerations for all of them. The ultimate point of principle is that it is Russia that bears responsibility for paying reparations, and that will remain the point of principle. It is obviously not possible right now to have a conversation with Russia about that, so we will need to work over time on the potential range of options for compensation. I think that it will take a long time.
Baroness Verma: In the meantime you will be thinking of what those mechanisms look like, and of course Russia will not be the most agreeable contributor to it. How do you mitigate the fact that Russia may not want to partake? I agree that it is very complicated, but it is something that I am sure is going on.
Sophie Guelff: The point of principle for the Government is that ultimately it needs to be Russia that pays, that this is Russia’s legal duty to pay these reparations. There are quite a few ideas that have been floated about how this could work in practice. With international partners we have been looking at some of the historical precedents, including the UN Compensation Commission for Kuwait, which had a mechanism linked to a levy on oil sales that Iraq agreed to after the conflict with Kuwait. There are discussions about Russian sovereign assets. There is no one clear way forward on that at the moment, and I should be honest as well that there are lots of other competing claims if we were to find a way through on Russian sovereign assets. There are lots of immediate needs for Ukraine as well and there would be claims on that money too. There may be other mechanisms that we can develop, but none of this is settled yet and we will have to work this through in some detail with international partners.
Q15 Lord Hannay of Chiswick: Do you recognise that there is a risk that the commission and the work that we are pressing forward with is effectively seen as a Tibetan prayer wheel that whizzes round and nothing happens? Are any steps being taken to get preliminary estimates of serious onslaughts, like last night’s by the Russians, quantified by the Ukrainians at least? I am sure that you cannot have the Commission deciding what the quantification is, but will you take any steps? It strikes me that it might be more effective if there was at least a figure put out on the table, when these massive onslaughts take place, by the Ukrainians as to the claims that they are likely to make.
Sophie Guelff: That is an interesting idea. It is not one that I have yet discussed with the team, but we will take that back and consider it and come back to you in more detail. On the question of does it risk becoming a white elephant, yes, we have to guard against that. Clearly there will be a lag between claims being determined and compensation being delivered in future. Our rationale for continuing at the moment is that there are three key points for us. The first is that it is important that we send a strong signal to Ukrainians and to the international community of our collective commitment to accountability and to holding Russia accountable financially and morally. The progress that we make on this now is part of that, even if it cannot deliver full compensation in the short term. The second is that international justice processes are often quite slow and non-linear and they change over time. While we cannot necessarily see a way through now to how we get to full compensation, there are other previous examples, including, for example, getting to the arrest of Slobodan Milošević, that show that over time things can become possible that we did not think were possible previously. As you say, recording things now so that we are building up that authoritative record will allow us to have that on the table and to have a clear record of the damage that Russia has caused.
On how we judge now the cost of last night’s attack, that is one of the arguments for setting up the Claims Commission, because the sooner we can get to a process where Ukrainians and others can make claims and there is a process by which they can be assessed through the panels of commissioners, the sooner we will have a mechanism for being able to set out the record of damage and potential claims that we can see so far. It speaks to why, even though we do not have an answer on compensation yet, there is value in ensuring the Claims Commission is set up as soon as possible.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick: If you have any thoughts on that, that would be very helpful to me.
The Chair: Lord Hannay, should you not have declared your interest as the creator of the original compensation processes in Iraq?
Lord Hannay of Chiswick: Yes, but it was a very different one, the Kuwait one, which I was involved in quite intimately and that worked relatively fast and on the basis of determinations that the Government of Iraq had no means of resisting. There are parallels that I hope we will draw on, but there are also quite large differences. I hope that you will set that out a little bit more clearly at times, first to ensure that people understand this has been done and brought to a conclusion, but also that it is fiendishly difficult.
Sophie Guelff: I worked on it in my very first role in the Foreign Office. I was the desk officer in the Iraq team dealing with the tail end of that process. I should also, with apologies, have said that the potential time lag is one of the reasons that in the negotiations on the Claims Commission, we as the UK were very careful to make sure that there were a set of clear financial safeguards in place so that costs do not balloon over an extended period. In particular, as part of the treaty agreement that is in front of you, there is a cost-sharing threshold. For the treaty to enter into force, there has to be a minimum membership of 25, and those 25 have to account for the equivalent of 50% of the Register of Damage budget in 2025. In practice, that will mean at least three major contributors being part of it. That is one safeguard that we have in place.
We also have a set of safeguards on control of future spending. There are a set of decisions, including transition of the Register of Damage into the claims commission and establishing the panels of commissioners that will require agreement of a two-thirds majority of the assembly and all of the major contributors. Then, as I said earlier, we will have a seat on the Finance Committee as a major contributor, which means that throughout we will have oversight of budgets and assessed contributions. We will do everything we can to make sure that we are developing this in the most proportionate way possible, understanding that it could continue to exist for a long time.
Q16 Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: I am not sure that you have made friends with the Tibetans there, with their wheel.
You have said on many occasions that the Russians must be held responsible for all damage caused. You also said that the Commission is being established in the context of ongoing hostilities before the conflict has ended. In the Government’s view, is engagement with Russia as the aggressor necessary in order to make the Claims Commission and the compensation fund effective?
Sophie Guelff: Ultimately, the international compensation mechanism and the claims commission within it have been designed to be able to operate whether or not Russia chooses to join. In that sense, at the top level, engagement with Russia is not necessary to make the claims commission effective. However, the convention does provide for Russia to join it at a later stage if it would like to, on the basis that it takes on legal responsibility for its actions. There would be no automatic membership. Russia would have to accept responsibility for damage, loss and injury from its internationally wrongful acts. It would need to agree to honour the decisions of the Claims Commission on compensation and provide means of payment. It would need to accept the rules and procedures of the Commission and it would need to agree to bear the costs of the Claims Commission and reimburse members for contributions up to the point of entry into force. Once a member, Russia would not have a veto and would not be able to frustrate the work of the Claims Commission. That is obviously a very high bar for engagement.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: It does not sound very appealing, does it?
Sophie Guelff: It does not sound hugely appealing, but that is precisely why the Commission has been designed so that it does not require Russia to be a member to function. In the long term, if we were in a post-settlement world, that might be a conversation that we would be able to have with Russia, but in the meantime we will continue and ensure that the Claims Commission can start operating while the conflict continues.
Q17 Lord Anderson of Swansea: Following on what Lord Hannay has said, it is quite easy to distinguish the case of Iraq, which was a defeated country. There is no realistic prospect, surely, of this Russian Government or any Russian successor Government putting their hands up and saying that they are responsible and will pay. Therefore, we come to the question of money, and the Register, and the Commission, will be an architecture of building castles in the air unless we are able to proceed to the third stage of finding the necessary resources. Is there currently an international consensus that it is legally possible to take the frozen Russian assets? There were some very strong voices against this as a legal precedent. Secondly, what are the alternative sources of funding? Without money, all this is of no effective use.
Sophie Guelff: On Russian sovereign assets, the UK and the wider G7 have committed to ensuring that Russian sovereign assets remain immobilised until Russia ceases its war of aggression and pays for damages. It is the “and pays for damages” that is an important part of that commitment. It is very hard to envisage a scenario in which those assets are made available to Russia again without there having been some settlement that involves Russia paying reparations.
Lord Anderson of Swansea: Is there a consensus on that?
Sophie Guelff: There is consensus on that principle that the assets should not be returned to Russia until that point. What there is no consensus on yet is around the question of how the assets might be used in the meantime to pay compensation or for other uses, including support to Ukraine’s war effort.
Lord Anderson of Swansea: Is the interest on the assets available?
Sophie Guelff: We have done that in the case of the extraordinary revenue acceleration loans to Ukraine. This was a G7 scheme that was agreed in 2024 where we took $50 billion in financing, using extraordinary windfall profits from the Russian sovereign assets that are held in the EU, to provide financing to Ukraine’s military efforts. We have done that and the UK’s contribution to that was £2.26 billion that we have now fully delivered.
You will be aware that there was a discussion within the EU in the second half of last year that we worked very closely with European partners on around the question of whether there could be a reparations loan. That would not have been seizing the underlying principle, but would have been providing loans to Ukraine backed by that principle. There is no current consensus on a new mechanism such as the reparations loan that the EU had suggested. Ultimately, the EU went with the €90 billion Ukraine support loan, but it is entirely possible that we will come back to that conversation and look at further approaches in the future. As the UK Government, we are committed to continuing to work with partners to find every possible way of ensuring that we can support Ukraine, whether it is through our own fiscal support or whether it is through considering innovative ways of using the Russian sovereign assets, but there is no current consensus on a new approach.
Lord Anderson of Swansea: Are there other potential sources?
Sophie Guelff: On other potential sources, there are ideas around the oil levy that was used in the Kuwait case, but that would need to come later as part of any peace deal. The EU loan had a provision where part of the €90 billion could potentially be put towards compensation. I am not aware of whether the EU is planning to do that at the moment.
There are no other obvious sources at the moment. Of course, while members of the Claims Commission are not liable to pay compensation, there could be a route in due course. If members wished to contribute to compensation, that could also be a possibility.
The Chair: To follow on, before we come to Lord Stevenson’s point, which slightly goes back to the point made at the beginning. There is a great amount of validity in the process itself, but at the same time there has to be realisation as to the outcome. It is very different to the Iraq situation. This is an important question from Lord Stevenson.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara: The reality is that we do not have the money, yet we are being asked to pay, as I understand it, £1.28 million towards the cost of this commission. Is that still the number?
Sophie Guelff: Yes, the UK will be responsible for making a contribution to the operational administrative costs of the commission. I will find my figures to make sure that I get them completely correct. It is £1.28 million towards the Register of Damage and a similar figure for the Claims Commission that we have budgeted for this spending review period. We are budgeting that through the FCDO’s non-ODA funding, so we have that already agreed.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara: Just to be clear about that, this cash is being scored against the FCDO’s current grant.
Sophie Guelff: It is scored against the FCDO’s non-ODA.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara: So there is no recourse to any other sources.
Sophie Guelff: We budgeted for as part of our spending review assessment.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara: If this all collapses, that will just be lost.
Sophie Guelff: If the Claims Commission were never to become a reality because it did not enter into force, we would continue to pay for the Register of Damage but we would not pay for the Claims Commission. The aim is that we will not be paying for both concurrently. As the Register of Damage ultimately moves across to the Claims Commission, there will be a tapering down of the amount of money we pay into that and a building up of the amount of money we pay into the Claims Commission.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara: This is real money.
Sophie Guelff: This is real money.
The Chair: One crosses over to the other, so the Register becomes the Claims Commission.
Sophie Guelff: Yes, it does.
The Chair: If we are successful, can we get compensation for paying this money to run this process? Is this nettable against compensation? The second question that came up the other day is do we have any information on UK claimants, because that makes it all the more relevant as well for this committee, companies that have lost industrial capacity, UK citizens who have been injured and so on.
Sophie Guelff: The question of nettable against compensation, is this could we recoup the money later?
The Chair: Yes.
Sophie Guelff: Against compensation payments, I do not know, but I would imagine not. However, if Russia joined the Commission in due course, it would be responsible for reimbursing the UK and other members for their contributions up to that point. I think that would be the mechanism for that. On UK claimants, I saw the testimony from the last session. I am not aware of any UK claimants, but we can follow up in writing, if that would be helpful.
The Chair: That would be quite helpful. There was some anecdotal evidence of UK claimants, and I do not see why they would not be on the Register.
Sophie Guelff: There is no reason for them not to if they meet the conditions.
Q18 Lord German: I first declare my interest that I am a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The Council of Europe, of course, holds the ring on the whole process and it shows something of the value of the Council of Europe and particularly of the Council of Ministers, the Committee of Ministers, who took this forward. In that context I have had an opportunity to scrutinise and to question and to vote upon this issue already. Perhaps the most staggering thing is that already more than 60,000 claims have been made for reparation. I do not know whether that list, which at the moment is held in Strasbourg, would list by where they are at the present moment. Maybe that is a question that we could take elsewhere and ask it directly of the Council of Europe.
Secondly, all the issues about frozen assets have been well negotiated, and I pay tribute to our colleague Lord Keen, who has done a lot of work on this matter and produced a special report on it, which I hope we will take into account in our deliberations. How do you think the UK Government should measure the success of the Claims Commission? Where would you put the ticks against the boxes?
Sophie Guelff: Long term, the measure of success has to be: does the international compensation mechanism as a whole contribute to Ukrainians receiving meaningful compensation, and does it support wider recovery and reconstruction in Ukraine? Ultimately, a just and sustainable peace will require collective support to Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction, and accountability becomes an important part of that. In the shorter term, the things that we will look at to judge progress, the first is whether the Claims Commission is up and running, has it managed to enter into force and, have we managed to get it set up. Then, can it move quickly to establishing a credible, independent and effective process for reviewing and determining claims? Is it continuing to build on the work of the Register of Damage in building a robust and authoritative record of damage resulting from Russia’s internationally wrongful actions? Then there are a set of operational indicators—the volume of claims that are being submitted and processed. I understand from the current Executive Director of the Register of Damage, who appeared before this committee, that the current number of claims is 155,000. We think that that could rise to about 10 million over time and we will need to keep tracking that. We will track the proportion of claims that are assessed as eligible, and the level of awareness and confidence among Ukrainians strikes us as an important measure of success.
The Chair: To follow up on that, you say the number of claims could be several million, which is understandable. How do you then have a practical limitation around the realities of a compensation scheme? Obviously, the amounts could be more significant than are repayable, to some extent. Does there have to be a discussion of an overall total compromise principle or is the process designed to be less flexible where it is simply a calculation of an action and a compensation?
Sophie Guelff: I am not sure that I know the answer to that question, so we will come back to you on it. These are the questions that we will need to develop as we develop the rules and procedures of the Claims Commission and as the council sets up the detailed mechanisms of how this work will work. However, it is a very important question that we will have to grapple with as we go through that process.
Q19 Lord Hannay of Chiswick: Is there not a danger of falling into the trap that western Governments fell into in the 1920s, when, having assessed not only compensation but reparations, they discovered that the figures were simply unsustainable and there were a series of totally miserable attempts to redesign the quantities and so on? Is it not important to make clear that this is nothing to do with reparations, it is purely compensation? The Kuwait example did not levy any reparations on Iraq at all, it merely asked Iraq and forced Iraq to pay back money for damage actually caused. Is that clearly enough established?
Sophie Guelff: My understanding is that that is the principle here. It is about assessing the value of individual claims and providing compensation for them rather than punitive reparations.
The Chair: That is an important point that we raised in the last evidence session as well.
Q20 Baroness Lawlor: Given your background, Sophie, where you were head of the Russia Department at the FCDO, what insights can you give us from the Russian angle and how they will treat it?
Sophie Guelff: As one of the members previously mentioned in their question, I think that it is very unlikely that the current Russian government and this leadership would ever engage with this process. We are very aware of that and that is why the UK’s Russia strategy assumes that there will not be a change in Russia’s overall approach and strategy while Putin remains President. The question may be what comes in future, in that Putin will not be president forever. We are all mortal, eventually, and this is more a question of future Russian governments and the relationship that we might establish with them, which is very, very hard to say at this stage.
Baroness Lawlor: What exchanges have you had, if any, with Russia, on other matters?
Sophie Guelff: As I am sure you are aware, we have very little in the way of bilateral exchanges with Russia at this point. They tend to be focused around questions of risk reduction, escalation management and management of our diplomatic platforms in Russia and in the UK. It is very important that, as two P5 members, there are channels of communication and that we are able to have conversations with each other, including on questions of European security. At the moment, those conversations are not happening in great detail and there is no conversation about the question of future reparations or compensation.
Baroness Lawlor: Is there a will to try to get diplomatic exchanges going?
Sophie Guelff: It is a question we are constantly looking at. Our starting position is that while there should be no normalisation of the relationship while Russia continues its war of aggression in Ukraine, it is nevertheless important that there is the ability to talk to each other. In the FCDO we spend a lot of time thinking about that and thinking about channels of communication and we will continue to work on those to make sure that we have the route through. Do I think that we will get to an extensive exchange any time soon? No, I do not, but we will continue to try because it is important.
Q21 The Chair: This came up the other day. If the US does a deal with Russia, that includes, and it is highly likely to include, some element of discussion around compensation claims, what happens to this commission then?
Sophie Guelff: It is very hard to prejudge where negotiations might come out. We continue to engage very closely with everybody involved in that process.
The Chair: I do not want to put you on the spot; it is clearly a difficult question to answer, but there is a risk that this gets superseded by a high-level negotiation that everyone would just have to buy into if the price of peace was that this commission process was wound up. I assume that would be part of the negotiation.
Sophie Guelff: I think that if the Ukrainian Government were here, our Ukrainian counterparts would say that that is why it is so important that we move ahead with this treaty and ensure that this is part of international governance, because it is harder to negotiate away things that are part of the established international architecture.
The Chair: That is the point. Once it is recorded, you have that long-term block of reference that can be referred back to.
Q22 Baroness Blower: We know that the Council of Europe has a very large engagement with this. Have the British Government thought about engaging with the OSCE in this matter? Russia is a member of the OSCE, although in dereliction at the moment because it is not paying its dues, but it was not expelled, and even though it refers to Europe, the fact is that the US is also a member. Is there any thinking anywhere about what the OSCE might do, given that its founding statement was about trying to get co-operative and interesting discussions between participating countries?
Sophie Guelff: This is less on the question of accountability and more on engagement.
Baroness Blower: There is clearly not accountability.
Sophie Guelff: The short answer is that, yes, the OSCE is a very, very important part of our work on Russia, Ukraine. It is the one place where we come together with Russia every week in the council and we have an exchange of positions. It is not an easy exchange of positions, but it is important. The OSCE has a potentially very important role as part of any ceasefire and negotiated settlement on ceasefire monitoring and all of the capabilities that it can bring. It is, as you say, a place where we and Russia and all of our European partners and the Ukrainians are present and it needs to be an important part. As we collectively have that conversation about the future of European security, we see the OSCE as an important place for that to happen.
Q23 Lord Anderson of Swansea: Given the current state of relationships between President Putin and the US President, is there at least a realistic danger that some deal between the US and Russia might undermine all the good work that is being done on compensation?
Sophie Guelff: I should say that the UK is strongly supportive of the US-led mediation efforts and ultimately we would like to see a negotiated settlement that enables an independent sovereign Ukraine to thrive as part of European security and wider European integration. That is ultimately where we want to go.
Secretary of State Rubio has been very clear over the last couple of weeks that there is no current progress in those negotiations. We do not see realistic prospects of movement in that in the immediate term. Obviously it is very hard to predict and at some point there could well be a negotiated settlement. As per the earlier question, it is important that we move ahead with establishing the claims commission, because ensuring that it is part of the established architecture will make it harder for it to be undermined as part of any ultimate negotiation.
Baroness Verma: It is important that the clear signals that come from us in the West is that we expect Russia to pay, regardless of the relationship that exists between Russia and the US. Our position and statement should be very clear that this is where we stand and our ally, the States, should understand that too.
Sophie Guelff: I strongly agree with that. We have been clear throughout the conflict that this is the basis of our sanctions regime, that it is the basis for immobilising the Russian assets, and that ultimately the UK’s position is that Russia is legally responsible for the damage caused by its internationally wrongful action against Ukraine. The UK Government strongly believe that it should be held accountable.
The Chair: Thank you very much indeed. That was extremely helpful and I have the greatest confidence in your ability to prosecute this case. They are very, very important actions. We look forward to writing our report and hopefully you will pass comment on it. We will send you a copy when it is ready. Thank you very much indeed. We appreciate your time and that of your colleagues that have been with you.
