Modern Approaches to Unifying Compensatory and Legal Mechanisms in the Process of Forming a Legal Category of “Ecological Damage”

The armed aggression of the Russian Federation has caused systemic environmental damage to the territory of Ukraine, which requires the formation of unified compensatory and legal mechanisms consistent with international and European standards. The article analyses modern approaches to the legal qualification of environmental damage, its assessment, and compensation in the national legislation of Ukraine in order to develop a comprehensive mechanism of legal response to challenges of war. The research is aimed at analysing the legal nature of environmental damage in the context of military conflict and substantiating approaches to its compensation in the context of post-war recovery and ecosystem sustainability. The research methodology is based on a combination of content analysis of international treaties, EU acquis norms, Ukrainian legislation, case law (the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC), and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), as well as a systematic review of scientific publications in Google Scholar. The practical base of the study is supplemented by analysing the case of destroying the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant (HPP), official data of the State Environmental Inspectorate (SEI), and reports of intergovernmental organizations. The need for transition from a normative-calculation to an expenditure-recovery model of assessment, the implementation of the Planetary Boundaries principles, in addition to the introduction of a national mechanism for monitoring losses, has been argued.