Ukraine studies Israeli experience in assessing military losses: why Kyiv needs a model that works under rockets

Ukraine and Israel are expanding cooperation in the field of property assessment, property rights, and war damage.

On July 3, 2026, the Embassy of Ukraine in the State of Israel reported on a working meeting between the Deputy Head of the State Property Fund of Ukraine Natalia Panova and the Head of the Israeli Real Estate Appraisers Association Nehama Bugin.

The meeting was also attended by the Ambassador of Ukraine to Israel Yevhen Korniychuk.

At first glance, the topic may seem narrowly professional: appraisers, standards, methodologies, quality control, interaction with the state.

But for a country that faces destroyed homes, ruined businesses, damaged infrastructure, and lost assets daily, this is not a technical issue.

It is a matter of restoring justice.

Why Ukraine looks to Israel

Ukraine has been living in conditions of full-scale war since February 2022.

Russia destroys residential buildings, enterprises, energy facilities, warehouses, schools, hospitals, private property, and state infrastructure.

After each strike, not only a humanitarian tragedy arises, but also a huge legal and financial array of questions: what exactly is damaged, how to assess it, who should record the damage, how to avoid manipulation, what documents are needed for compensation, courts, insurance mechanisms, and future international claims.

This is where Israeli experience becomes especially important for Ukraine.

Israel has lived for decades in the reality of rocket attacks, terrorist threats, and military operations.

The country has a system where damage to property from war or hostile actions is considered through state compensation mechanisms.

Official Israeli procedures provide for the submission of claims for damaged property, including buildings, cars, room contents, equipment, and infrastructure. If necessary, a professional appraiser or engineer is sent to the site.

For Ukraine, this is not a ready-made copy that can simply be transferred to another ground.

But it is a practical model from which principles can be taken: speed of damage recording, professional assessment standards, quality control, connection between the state and appraisers, as well as clear rules for citizens and businesses.

What the parties discussed

According to the Embassy of Ukraine in Israel, the main topic of the meeting was the study of Israeli approaches to assessing property, property rights, and losses caused by military actions.

The parties discussed the role of the professional community in forming assessment standards.

This is an important point.

The assessment of military damage cannot be just a bureaucratic procedure.

If it is completely closed in offices, the system will quickly lose trust.

If it is given only to the market, without control and uniform rules, chaos, overestimations, underestimations, disputes, and corruption risks will arise.

The Israeli experience is interesting precisely because the state logic there is connected with professional expertise.

The second important block is the interaction of appraisers with state bodies.

In wartime conditions, this is critical.

The appraiser must work not in an abstract market situation, but with an object that could have been damaged by a rocket, drone, blast wave, fire, debris, or secondary destruction.

Clear rules are needed: who goes out, who records, what documents are accepted, how urgency is taken into account, how direct damage is separated from indirect, where the initial assessment ends and the dispute over compensation begins.

The third block is the training of specialists specifically for working with military losses.

Ordinary assessment of an apartment, warehouse, or office and assessment of an object after a rocket strike are not the same.

Military damage requires understanding of construction damage, infrastructure consequences, market value, property rights, evidence base, and legal perspective.

Therefore, for Ukraine, it is not only about methodology, but about creating a new professional culture.

Who participated in the meeting

Natalia Panova is the Deputy Head of the State Property Fund of Ukraine.

The State Property Fund is one of the key bodies related to property assessment, management of state assets, and formation of assessment activity approaches.

For Ukraine, Panova’s participation means that the topic of military losses is considered not as a separate episode, but as part of a large state policy of recovery.

Nehama Bugin is one of the notable figures in the Israeli professional real estate appraisers community.

Her participation is important because Israel has not only state compensation procedures but also professional expertise accumulated under constant security threats.

Yevhen Korniychuk is the Ambassador of Ukraine to the State of Israel.

His participation shows that this meeting was not just a professional consultation, but an element of Ukrainian-Israeli dialogue at a practical level.

NANovosti — News of Israel | Nikk.Agency notes: such meetings rarely become loud headlines, but it is from such contacts that the real agenda of cooperation between countries is formed.

Not only statements, not only visits, not only diplomatic formulas.

But the exchange of experience where war leaves concrete destruction and concrete bills.

Why this is important for the Israeli audience

For Israelis, the topic of war damage compensation is not theoretical.

After attacks, rocket strikes, and military operations, thousands of citizens face damaged apartments, cars, businesses, and infrastructure.

The Israeli system is not perfect; it also has delays, disputes, bureaucracy, and claims.

But the logic of the compensation mechanism itself, the participation of appraisers, and the presence of procedures provide Ukraine with valuable material for analysis.

Ukraine today needs a system that will work not after the war, but already during the war.

Because recovery does not begin when the crane arrives at the construction site.

It begins at the moment of damage recording.

If the damage is recorded incorrectly, the citizen may lose compensation.

If the assessment is done unprofessionally, the state will get chaos in the numbers.

If the methodology does not take into account the reality of war, future claims against Russia will be weaker.

And vice versa: a quality assessment of destruction can become part of the evidence base, financial planning, and future recovery.

Israeli experience and Ukrainian reality

The main meaning of the meeting is not that Israel will “teach” Ukraine to assess destruction.

Ukraine has accumulated its own vast experience in documenting damage over years of full-scale war.

But the Israeli model can help where standards, speed, professional discipline, and the connection between the state, appraisers, and citizens are important.

For Ukraine, this is especially relevant because the scale of destruction is enormous.

It is not only about private apartments or houses.

These are factories, ports, power plants, warehouses, agricultural assets, commercial real estate, communal infrastructure, state property, and objects that may become the subject of international compensation mechanisms.

And here the issue of assessment becomes a matter of national resilience.

Russia destroys not only walls.

It tries to destroy the country’s economic base, its ability to recover, invest, bring people home, and prove the extent of the damage caused.

Therefore, the cooperation between Ukraine and Israel in the field of property and war damage assessment is not a secondary topic.

It is part of the large architecture of Ukraine’s recovery.

And at the same time, another example of where Israeli experience can be useful to the Ukrainian state not at the level of slogans, but at the level of practical solutions.

For Israel, this is also an important signal.

Ukraine increasingly looks at Israeli practices not only through the prism of security and defense but also through the prism of civil resilience: compensation, damage administration, specialist training, and trust in state procedures.

War tests not only the army.

It tests documents, institutions, appraisers, engineers, lawyers, and the state’s ability to respond to the citizen not with general words, but with a specific solution.

That is why the meeting of Natalia Panova, Nehama Bugin, and Yevhen Korniychuk deserves attention.

Behind it lies a simple question: how to turn destruction into proven damage, proven damage into compensation, and compensation into recovery.