Help for fighters: United Russia and the Defenders of the Fatherland Foundation join forces

Together they will promote even more effectively the expansion of support measures for SVO participants and their families

The interaction between the United Russia party and the Defenders of the Fatherland Foundation was discussed during a working meeting. Secretary of the General Council of the party, head of the working group on the Northern Military District, Andrei Turchak, met with the chairman of the fund, Anna Tsivileva. The agenda included the development of legislative initiatives to expand support for special operations fighters and veterans and their relatives.

According to Turchak, the support and resources of the fund will help during the coordination of legislative initiatives at different levels of government. As an example, the secretary of the party’s General Council cited the work to provide military personnel with free travel to and from the place where they undergo the military medical commission.

“I am confident that our joint efforts will give impetus to legislative work,” Turchak emphasized.

In turn, the representative of the working group on SVO, first deputy head of the Duma faction of United Russia, Dmitry Vyatkin, said that a number of other bills require the close attention of the fund. For example, about preserving places in the civil service for mobilized and contract soldiers, about state insurance for volunteers, about housing payments to the families of dead participants in a special operation, and others.

“We are talking about employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Federal Penitentiary Service and the bailiff service. The bill has passed the first reading, and now we are waiting for amendments from the Government. On state insurance of volunteers, we have not yet reached the first reading, although the committee has already approved it,” Vyatkin clarified.

The working group on SVO is also working on issues of rehabilitation and prosthetics. Although, as Turchak noted, this task is not an easy one and specific problems often have to be solved manually.

“Almost 20 different structures are now dealing with this issue, but there is no “seamlessness” of this process, which would allow, without bureaucracy, to produce and provide children with the necessary means of rehabilitation and monitor this at all stages, starting with setting the state task,” he complained.

Anna Tsivileva emphasized that services for rehabilitation, habilitation, and prosthetics should become interconnected.

“When using prosthetics, it is worth taking into account individual characteristics; mandatory elements of medical rehabilitation must be present. I think it is important that the list and scope of medical care for prosthetics be normatively enshrined in the standards that today need to be developed,” Tsivileva said.

“Against the backdrop of the SVO and foreign policy pressure, the efforts of responsible structures providing assistance to the participants in the operation and their families, as well as regions affected by military operations, must be consolidated. In this context, effective interaction between United Russia, the Working Group on SVO and the fund has begun.” “Defenders of the Fatherland,” Andrei Turchak and Anna Tsivileva personally are in great demand,” commented APEC General Director Dmitry Orlov on the importance of such working meetings.

Let us remind you that the working group on SVO issues was created by order of the President. It was headed by the First Vice-Speaker of the Federation Council, Secretary of the General Council of United Russia Andrei Turchak. The group included representatives of both houses of the federal parliament and all parliamentary parties, the Ministry of Defense, leaders of public organizations, and leading war correspondents. The implementation of the working group’s initiatives and proposals is under the control of the president, and reports regularly reach his desk.

The decree on the creation of a state fund to support participants in the special military operation “Defenders of the Fatherland” was signed by the president on April 3, 2023. Branches of the fund opened in all regions of the Russian Federation on May 30 and 31, and began work on June 1. The fund’s Supervisory Board was headed by First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Sergei Kiriyenko. Andrey Turchak is a member of the supervisory board and heads its working group on lawmaking.