Russian MPs are creating a task force to estimate the amount of damages caused by Germany in Russia during World War II with a view to seeking reparations worth up to €4 trillion — that’s with a “t”, as in trillions — reports Izvestia.

“Germany continues to inflict economic damage to Russia, by extending EU-trade sanctions,” said nationalist MP Mikhail Degyaterov, who proposed the initiative.

“Germany didn’t pay any reparations to the USSR to compensate for destruction and brutalities committed during the Second World War. The Yalta agreement allowed the USSR to seize some German assets from the Soviet occupation sector, but these were mostly industrial machinery, furniture and clothing, that could be considered spoils of war and that could not compensate for the damage inflicted to the Soviet economy by the war.”

He also said that after the war, the USSR entered an agreement with East Germany to cease reparations payments but no treaties had been made with the Federal Republic of (West) Germany. The MP also suggested a collective action to be taken between Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, amongst other countries that had suffered at the hands of Nazi aggressors.

He pointed to damages caused by Nazi Germany, as 1,710 Soviet cities and towns, 70,000 villages, 32,000 factories and 100,000 collective farms were destroyed. “What we have now is that Germany repaid compensations to more than six million victims of the Holocaust but ignored the deaths of 27 million Soviet people, over 16 million of which were civilians,” said Degtyaryov.