On 26 April 2026, B4Ukraine held a high-level conference in Kyiv on “Defunding, Disarming, and Isolating Russia’s War Machine”. The central objectives were assessing the effectiveness of strategies deployed since 2022 to undermine Russia’s economic support for war – including sanctions, corporate accountability, enforcement, litigation, etc. – and identifying priorities for strengthening civil society strategies for economic pressure and accountability moving forward. The conference brought together coalition members, along with representatives of broader civil society, policymakers, and international partners.
Jeremy Pizzi, GRC’s Legal Adviser and Deputy Mobile Justice Team Lead, spoke as a panellist and contributed to roundtable sessions focused on the interplay between sanctions and criminal accountability for corporations complicit in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Jeremy reaffirmed the value of criminal accountability as a tool that overcomes the limitations of sanctions by establishing a permanent record, providing stronger grounds for asset seizures to support reparations, and creating sustained risks for investors. He emphasised that particular pressure must be placed on businesses involved in occupation-related war crimes.
Jeremy stressed that criminal accountability efforts are an essential tool to blunt Russia’s economic ability to wage aggression: “Corporations, both Russian and foreign, are liable for complicity in a whole litany of war crimes. They must be held accountable, while any further involvement in furthering the occupation must be perceived as toxic for business. All countries have their role to play and are obliged under international law to prevent any aid or assistance to Russia’s manifestly illegal conduct.”
Photo credit: Euromaidan Press