Civil Society Solidarity Statement
Over the four years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it has become evident that the safety of Ukrainians is also the safety of Europe as a whole, and that our mutual security requires consistent political responses against threats from Russian actors.
Russian oligarchs are using a mechanism known as investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) to challenge sanctions imposed by Ukraine and its allies in secretive tribunals, claiming vast amounts of public money. The total sum sanctioned investors are demanding as compensation from European countries and Ukraine surpasses 60 billion USD.
ISDS is written into numerous investment treaties. The access by Russian oligarchs and companies to ISDS through these treaties is undermining a common defence against the Russian attack. Threats of costly ISDS claims have already led EU countries to refrain from utilising the immobilised Russian assets held by the financial transaction manager Euroclear in support of Ukraine.
Ukraine has been targeted by 13 claims against its national security policy and sanctions, including cases initiated by Russian fossil fuel companies, putting billions of the severely underfunded public budget at stake. In many cases, investment treaties between Ukraine and other European countries have been used by sanctioned Russian oligarchs to sue Ukraine via companies registered in Europe. The amount of damages claimed against Ukraine in these cases exceeds 6 billion USD – the amount is publicly known only for four cases and the total amount claimed is likely to be much higher. And the cases are accelerating, six cases were filed in 2025 alone.
Russian investors have also targeted other European countries, challenging their sanctions measures. The Russian oligarch Fridman alone has filed one claim for 16 billion against the government of Luxembourg and another against the United Kingdom. Other claims have been filed against Belgium, Lithuania, Switzerland and France.
While the EU and Switzerland have attempted to shield themselves from sanctions-related ISDS claims, no similar protections have been extended to Ukraine that would limit the ability of Russian-owned companies in Europe to challenge Ukraine’s national security measures.
These claims are not just a threat to Ukrainian sovereignty by weakening its ability to defend itself; they are also a threat to European sovereignty by weakening the ability of Europe to enforce security policies such as sanctions and the use of Russian assets to financially support Ukraine. Furthermore, ISDS is an ongoing barrier to Europe and Ukraine’s climate and security goal of reducing their dependence on Russian fossil fuels. Climate is a long term security threat to our nations, and it’s necessary that our states have regulatory autonomy that is not influenced by fossil fuel companies, as the EU already recognized by exiting the Energy Charter Treaty.
We, civil society from across Europe including Ukraine, ask the EU, the UK, Switzerland, and Ukraine:
- to find mutual agreement to immediately cancel the treaties with ISDS between these countries and neutralise the sunset clauses in order, to prevent further arbitration claims and thereby protect Ukrainians from further attacks by Russian investors;
- to cancel investment treaties with Russia to phase-out the ability of Russian investors to bring claims, as Ukraine has already done;
- to extend to Ukraine the provisions of the EU’s 18th sanctions package aimed at preventing the risks of investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS) and strengthening safeguards to prevent the enforcement of arbitral awards;
- in the longer term, to end the threat that ISDS poses more broadly to countries’ regulatory autonomy, all countries should remove ISDS from existing treaties and stop signing new treaties with any form of ISDS.
Citations of figures come from the following research:
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