Ukraine’s Oschadbank won an appeal against Russia on July 1 after the Paris appeals court rejected Moscow’s challenge to a 2018 arbitration ruling ordering compensation for losses due to Russia's annexation of Crimea, the bank announced in a press release on July 3.

The Paris Court of Appeal upheld the November 2018 arbitration tribunal decision requiring Russia to compensate Oschadbank for damages incurred when Moscow annexed the Ukrainian peninsula in 2014.

The ruling orders Russia to pay more than $1.5 billion in damages and an additional 300,000 euros ($330,000) in legal costs to Ukraine's largest state-owned bank, according to a press release.

"The victory proves that efforts to force the aggressor state to answer legally for damages caused by the occupation of part of Ukraine's territory have good prospects," said Rosa Tapanova, a member of Oschadbank's supervisory board.

Oschadbank Chairman Serhii Naumov said it's the first Ukrainian bank to win such a case against Russia.

The decision follows Oschadbank's recent seizure of over 87 million euros ($102 million) in Russian assets in France as part of its campaign to recover war-related losses. The bank has been pursuing Russian assets across multiple jurisdictions to enforce the arbitration award.

"We understand that the Russian Federation will never voluntarily comply with the court's decision, and we are prepared for a long struggle," said Arsen Miliutin, deputy chairman of Oschadbank's management board.

"At the same time, we are confident that we will win, and Russia will pay not only the amount of damages caused, but also interest for all this time."

The Oschadbank victory adds to a growing list of Ukrainian legal wins against Russia. On June 23, Naftogaz CEO Serhii Koretskyi announced that an international arbitration tribunal in Switzerland had ordered Russia's Gazprom to pay the Ukrainian state energy company $1.37 billion after the Russian firm stopped fulfilling contract obligations in May 2022.

As Trump ‘loses interest’ in Ukraine, Kyiv scrambles to clarify extent of U.S. military aid pause

When the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) halted the transfer of critical air defense missiles and other weapons to Ukraine, Kyiv and its partners were caught off-guard and are now left scrambling for clarity on the scope and length of the Trump administration’s decision. The White House confirmed the halt after a July 1 report by Politico said shipments were paused due to concerns over the size of domestic stockpiles. The decision “was made to put America’s interests first following a DOD rev

The Kyiv IndependentAndrea Januta

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has confirmed that Russia violated international law. A new report has verified the use of a “toxic chemical substance” by Russian forces against Ukrainian troops.

The substance is CS gas, known as Siren or Lilac, a dangerous irritant banned as a method of warfare under the 1925 Geneva Protocol and the Chemical Weapons Convention, of which Russia has been a member since 1997.

According to experts, samples of soil, vegetation, grenade casings, and parts of an FPV drone were collected during a visit to Ukraine. All analyses confirmed the presence of CS gas, its precursors, or its breakdown products.

“The analyses… confirm that all grenades collected from dugouts… contained a riot control agent CS. The soil and vegetation collected from the locations where the grenades were found also contained CS,” the report states.

This marks the third confirmed instance of Russia using chemical weapons in the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast — previous reports were released in November 2024 and February 2025.

OPCW Director-General Fernando Arias expressed his concern over Russia’s chemical weapons use. 

“The repeated discovery of riot-control agent grenades near active conflict zones in the Dnipropetrovsk oblast is deeply concerning,” he said.

The OPCW has been monitoring the situation in the territory of Ukraine since the start of the all-out war in February 2022. For its efforts in eliminating chemical weapons, the organization received the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize.

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a significant statement in which she clearly distinguished Russia’s war against Ukraine from Israel’s strikes on Iran, Deutsche Welle reports.

According to her, Russia’s full-scale invasion constitutes a blatant violation of the international order, whereas Israel’s actions are of a different nature.

“I don’t fully agree that Israel is violating international law. When a country’s existence is being questioned by Iran or Hamas, it’s not so easy to respond strictly within the framework of international law,” the ex-German chancellor says.

Merkel emphasizes that in Israel’s case, it is about the right to self-defense in the face of threats to the state’s very existence. At the same time, she pointed out clearly that Ukraine posed no such threat.

“Ukraine never threatened Russia — and yet it was attacked,” adds Merkel, underscoring Russia’s breach of international law.

Earlier, Herman Pirchner, president of the American Foreign Policy Council, said a potential US strike on a major Iranian nuclear program may force Moscow to reconsider its approach to the war in Ukraine.

US strike on Iran could force Moscow to imagine what real strength feels like, says expert

Such a decision could impact Moscow’s calculus, as they have yet to see a firm response from the US President Donald Trump administration, as America has not yet responded strongly to any of the Russian attacks, which have only intensified amid peace efforts.