HUGE: Russia to Start Paying Out Pensions of Donbass Retirees

Of the 3.65 million people in rebel Donbass, 720,000 have so far applied and received Russian citizenship and passport. The issuing of passports is somewhat hampered by the fact Donbass residents must travel across the border to Russia to apply.

Nonetheless, the number of applications is now guaranteed to skyrocket as Russia will now pay out the pensions of Donbass residents who take up the citizenship.

Until now Russian citizens from Donbass had to take up permanent residency in Russia for their pension to be covered by Russia, but that will now change:

Russian citizens living in the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR will be able to apply for social payments and benefits through public services without specifying a residence permit.

To work out this issue, the government was instructed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to January 29 on the Kremlin’s website. It is necessary to report on the implementation by May 1.

Ukraine claims these people (who anyway earned their pensions paying into the Ukrainian pension fund) as its own citizens under a joint terrorist-Russian occupation and is waging a low-scale war to return them to its control (aka to “liberate” them). But as part of its blockade and strangulations tactics against these very same people Kiev makes it extremely difficult for them to collect what they are owed:

Ukraine’s government stopped paying pensions and other social payments to people living in the self-proclaimed and Russian-controlled ‘Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics’ back in November 2014. In order to receive their pensions, people have to register as internally displaced persons and appear in person at least once in two months.

Of the 1 million, 59 thousand pensioners now entitled to pensions, only 650 thousand are receiving them. It is likely that a considerable percentage of the over 450 thousand men and women who are not getting them do not feel strong enough to make the journey.

The problem is also that elderly people are forced to stand for many hours in queues on both sides of the checkpoints. For a significant number, the strain is too much, and there are regular reports of elderly people dying at the checkpoints.

It is only correct and humane that Russia should take care of these people betrayed and humiliated by Kiev. It should have happened a long time ago, not after seven and a half years of treating them as unwanted stepchildren.

One wonders if the motive was really humanitarian though. Since the number of Donbass residents with voting rights in Russian elections had grown to 720,000 Moscow also needed to preempt the danger they would be voting for parties that are not United Russia.

In any case, it’s a positive (if belated) move with huge implications. Paying out pensions is much bigger news than handing out passports, and will be much more appreciated in Donbass. It will now be easier for Donbass retirees to actually collect plus if the Crimean formula is applied the Russian pensions will be higher — €120 from Russia compared to €70 from Ukraine. Yes, these are pitifully small figures, and yes the Russian government had been penny-pinching over a measly 120 million euros a month which is low-class and undignified. (The sadists and scum in Kiev aren’t even worth expending words on.)

Does this have an implication for the current war scare? Difficult to say. It could be an advertisement for the benefit of East Ukrainians telling them that Russian power also brings higher Russian pensions.

But it could just as easily mean that the takeover of East Ukraine would now be so expensive for penny-pinching Moscow that it is no longer in the realm of possibility, and that war is now thus less likely.