Ministry of Defense centralizes work with veterans

The head of the military department, Sergei Shoigu, at an expanded meeting of the board of the Ministry of Defense with the participation of President Vladimir Putin, announced the creation of a federal agency for work with veterans. “Together with the authorities, work has been organized to create a Federal Agency for Work with Veterans. This will allow us to centralize and make the system of social protection of military veterans more effective, ”the press service of the Ministry of Defense quotes him as saying. He noted that this initiative was supported by the president, for which Shoigu thanked him.

Viktor Sobolev, a member of the United Russia State Duma Defense Committee, explained to Vedomosti that now the law enforcement agencies themselves are dealing with the problems of social protection of veterans. According to the deputy, the need to create such an agency is due to the fact that a law was adopted that equates participants in a special operation with combat veterans, and coordination of executive authorities in terms of providing benefits is necessary. “We need both care and coordination for the children of the victims – a whole set of social measures that will be aimed at supporting veterans and their families,” he said.

The idea was voiced for a long time by the profile committee of the State Duma, it supported veteran organizations that made such a request, said Yaroslav Nilov (LDPR), Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Labor, Social Policy and Veterans Affairs. He noted that now veterans are divided into departmental ones, and social security agencies are also included in this work. “The issue is that there is no single body that would deal with all veterans,” Nilov said. According to him, it is “obvious” that now there will be many combat veterans and disabled people, and a single body is needed so that “representatives of the National Guard, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the Ministry of Defense, and civilians who have such a right can apply at one window understand what support measures are available.

Veterans are now registered with veterans’ organizations and are being handled by local authorities, says Andrey Kartapolov (United Russia), Chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee: “When a person ends his service in the Armed Forces, he is no longer related to the Ministry of Defense. Since the number of veterans, taking into account the conduct of a special military operation, we will have more, it is logical to create the Federal Agency for Work with Veterans.”

The agency can deal with a variety of issues – from social support to assistance related to rehabilitation, as well as help to get settled in civilian life, says Kartapolov: “We will have many veterans – and these are not only veterans from those who were on contract in the armed forces. These will be veterans from those who were mobilized, or veterans from the Wagner group. They all need to be dealt with.”