Understanding the conflict two years on.
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Two years into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the human toll continues to mount. At least 11 million people have been displaced by heavy bombing, drone strikes, and combat, and well over a million homes have been damaged or destroyed. But just miles from the front lines of what is a conventional land invasion, something decidedly unconventional has been deployed to help restore Ukrainian communities.
Two years into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the human toll continues to mount. At least 11 million people have been displaced by heavy bombing, drone strikes, and combat, and well over a million homes have been damaged or destroyed. But just miles from the front lines of what is a conventional land invasion, something decidedly unconventional has been deployed to help restore Ukrainian communities.
Thousands of families whose homes have been hit by Russian shelling are using their smartphones to file compensation claims, access government funds, and begin to rebuild their homes. This innovation is part of eRecovery, the world’s first-ever example of a government compensation program for damaged or destroyed homes rolled out digitally, at scale, in the midst of a war. It’s one of the ways in which Ukraine’s tech-savvy government and populace have leaned into digital solutions to help counter Russian aggression with resilience and a speedier approach to reconstruction and recovery.
According to Ukraine’s Housing, Land and Property Technical Working Group, since its launch last summer eRecovery has processed more than 83,000 compensation claims for damaged or destroyed property and paid out more than 45,000. In addition, more than half a million Ukrainians have taken the first step in the compensation process by a on property damage report through Ukraine’s e-government platform, Diia. eRecovery’s potential to transform the way governments get people back into their homes following a war, natural disaster, or other calamity is hard to overstate.
In some ways it’s not surprising that this happened in Ukraine. The Ukrainian government developed the backbone for its digital public infrastructure before the war—in 2020, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he’d like Ukraine to be a digital state in a smartphone—and the population has a high degree of digital fluency and trust in digital platforms. This digital focus has helped the government, private sector, and civil society develop several innovations to keep Ukrainians safer. As Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Federov wrote: “While Russia enjoys overwhelming advantages in terms of conventional military might, manpower, and resources, Ukraine can call upon a vibrant and sophisticated tech sector including around 300,000 IT professionals, and also benefits from a digital culture that is deeply rooted throughout Ukrainian society.”
In 2022, for example, Ukrainian volunteers developed a mobile phone application called ePPO that allows civilians to report sightings of incoming Russian drones and missiles. The following year, the Ukrainian government launched BRAVE1, a tech platform that fast-tracks innovations in the defense and security sectors. Recently Ukraine launched GIS Arta, an “Uber for artillery” software package that allows artillery unit users to mark themselves “open” to jobs and fire upon targets as few as 30 seconds after target acquisition.
Compared to these high-tech tools for defense, the eRecovery program itself is fairly simple, straightforward, and focused on restoration. A Ukrainian whose home has been damaged by Russian aggression reports the damage through Diia, a platform launched by Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation in 2019 and used by more than half of Ukrainians for everything from accessing digital IDs to paying taxes, receiving pensions, and registering companies. The victim then files a compensation claim and opens a specialized eRecovery bank account. After local authorities inspect the property to determine the appropriate amount of compensation, the claim is paid out. Families of veterans and other vulnerable groups are prioritized, and Ukrainians who repaired their homes out of pocket before the program was founded can retroactively file for compensation.
Post-conflict property return is typically a tortuous and expensive process that can last decades. Often, that’s because records are missing, destroyed, or inaccurate, or because victims are unable to present the necessary evidence to prove the extent of destruction to their property. Belligerents make things worse by deliberately destroying property registries, courts, and other civil infrastructure that would help with property return. During the Kosovo War, for example, Serbian forces stole property records as they retreated. Occupying forces often move into the homes people flee, further complicating post-conflict return. In Iraq, the Islamic State confiscated and later sold displaced Iraqis’ homes and land, using the revenue to fund terrorist activities.
The longer the instability drags out, the more precious resources a country dedicates to temporary housing, and the more likely the government is to fall into the paralysis of uncertainty and violence. But Ukraine’s eRecovery program appears poised to get Ukrainians back into their homes in a matter of months, not decades.
The program’s innovations are fivefold and provide a preliminary blueprint for other regions of the world looking to assist victims of manmade crises or natural disasters. First, because claimants can file from anywhere, anytime, eRecovery reduces the risk of setting up a brick-and-mortar intake center in the midst of a war zone. Second, relying on a digital-first process allows the government to quickly modify the app in response to user concerns, legislative progress, and changing realities. Third, because the program relies on Diia, a preexisting platform that many Ukrainians use and trust for other transactions, there is a baked-in understanding and recognition that the system works. Fourth, if managed effectively, a digital-first process minimizes opportunities for corruption and increases transparency of how claims are processed.
But fifth, and most importantly—the program is actually getting Ukrainians back into their homes right now. By proactively and responsively adjudicating claims, eRecovery reduces the risk that property records and other pieces of evidence are lost or destroyed or that an abandoned home is occupied by anyone other than the rightful owner. It also reduces the risk of tens of thousands of Ukrainians freezing to death while spending winters in makeshift tents, as is common during other conflicts or disasters.
All that said, eRecovery is not without its challenges. Ukrainian legal non-governmental organization East-SOS has dedicated the last two years to helping thousands of Ukrainians file property damage and compensation claims. Last year, East-SOS hosted roundtables in the cities of Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhia to hear about user experiences with eRecovery. According to staff, while eRecovery is user friendly enough, it’s hampered by practical and legal barriers that can make it difficult for some users to receive compensation.
A major challenge is that Ukrainians who registered their property before 2013 have to jump through extra hurdles to apply for compensation. That’s because the digitized State Register of Property Rights, with which Diia cross-references compensation claims, is largely populated with records after that date. Government systems are only as effective as the digital data they can access. Another obstacle is that eRecovery requires the consent of all co-owners of a property before filing a claim. Amid a violent conflict where co-owners can be incapacitated, held in occupied territory, or deceased, this measure is impractical. And while it’s technically possible to apply for compensation outside of the Diia platform, eRecovery’s digital primacy can delay claims for older claimants and others who are not online.
More broadly, the program could benefit from additional transparency. For example, a publicly accessible digital dashboard could track compensation claim and payout figures. Sharing data like this in real time would go a long way in strengthening trust in and accountability of public-serving institutions. Another accountability measure that could help institutionalize effective oversight is creating an independent and empowered official, akin to an inspector general for data integrity, to inspire greater trust and confidence in the recovery process.
The eRecovery program could also expand the ways in which claimants prove their eligibility for compensation. The United Nations’ Pinheiro Principles, which provide international guidelines for post-conflict housing, land, and property return, recommend that states accept a wide range of evidence of property ownership. Two-thirds of Ukrainians own smartphones and create digital trails that can help prove where they lived before their home was damaged or destroyed. By innovating to accept these alternate proofs, referred to as tapestry credentials, the government can expand the pool of people eligible for compensation and also process claims more rapidly.
Ukraine’s crisis response demonstrates that investing in digital public infrastructure can pay big dividends in moments of major upheaval. At their best, digital systems such as Diia make governments more resilient to a range of shocks and changes and offer rapid, transparent, and equitable support to residents in need. It’s painful to wonder, for example, how much the United States and other countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development could have benefitted from a trusted digital government platform in those chaotic months at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As world leaders reflect on their commitments to the people and government of Ukraine, it is essential to ensure there are opportunities to collaborate on technological solutions that serve as a force for good, capable of rebuilding communities and restoring lives. And although an end to Russian hostilities is difficult to foresee, Ukraine must continue to plan now for the building and restoration of communities.
Millions of Ukrainian refugees and internally displaced people will eventually decide to return home. The technical, legal, and operational choices Ukraine makes about its eRecovery program will be critical to ensuring these families will have homes to return to. Ukraine’s wartime innovations may one day serve as an example of how to rapidly return displaced people to their homes, and inspire similar initiatives around the world.
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