What pensions will be received in the “new territories” from March 1: it is difficult to prove the experience

Today it is literally a matter of life and death, since from January 1, 2023, all material payments to elderly residents of new Russian regions have been discontinued.

That is, for almost two months people have been doing without state support. Even minimal. What kind of pension can they expect in the future and, most importantly, where to get these funds?

No matter how cynical it sounds, the former Pension, and now the Social Fund of Russia, seemed to “breathe” more freely, when in the past 2022 the natural decline of elderly Russians amounted to 232 thousand people. Consequently, the burden on the pension budget also fell. True, not for long.

According to the statistics of the LDNR, in 2019, about 677 thousand pensioners lived in the Donetsk Republic, about 438 thousand in Luhansk. According to the most rough estimates, more than a million people permanently lived in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, of which, in accordance with the demographic situation in Ukraine, almost a third are pensioners.

That is, minus 232 thousand dead old Russians were replaced by the addition of at least 1.2 million new Russians of retirement age.

“It is no coincidence that our budget is not in surplus, but in deficit. Calculations for all social payments for 2023 were made taking into account the new territories. Social payments have been increased by one trillion rubles,” said Yelena Tsunaeva, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Labour, Social Policy and Veterans Affairs.

Attached territories are spending obligations and endless spending. For the elderly, large families, the disabled … Taking into account the fact that income and taxes from there in the near future cannot be expected for natural reasons. But you can’t leave people without a livelihood. People are not to blame for anything.

Yes, Putin approved the transition to the Russian pension system. Moreover, if at first the transition period was promised until 2032, now it has been shortened to 2027, that is, by five years.

What is the algorithm of this transition and what difficulties are already faced by those who applied for our pension.

Two days ago, a discussion of the problems of providing pensions for new Russians from the annexed territories took place at the Institute of the CIS countries. Both a representative of the Pension Fund and experts in pension law took part, officials from the Migration Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, human rights activists and lawyers protecting the rights of migrants and compatriots remotely connected. However, there are few reasons for optimism.

The fact is that now ex-Ukrainians everywhere are denied registration and payments in the field.

Hundreds of thousands of people from Zaporozhye, Kherson, Mariupol, who have reached and have not yet reached retirement age, simply cannot confirm their previous work experience in the Russian Federation. There are those who retired due to “hot seniority”, for example, metallurgists in Mariupol. In Ukraine, they were given a well-deserved rest from the age of 50-55.

Even if those in need provide the necessary certificates and documents (although most often they are not on hand), then under Russian law they do not have the right to early retirement in the Russian Federation.

Under a simplified procedure in accordance with Decree No. 440, hundreds of thousands of refugees from other regions – Kharkiv, Nikolaev, Odessa, who were forced to find themselves on the territory of the Russian Federation received and continue to receive Russian passports.

If earlier, under an agreement on pension provision with the CIS countries, including Ukraine, elderly foreigners from neighboring countries, having permanently moved to live in the Russian Federation, reissued their previous pensions, then from July 2022 Russia denounced this document and no longer owes anything to anyone.

The new law on pensions for residents of the annexed territories, which should come into force from March 1, 2023, became a copy of the law on pensions for residents of Crimea, thanks to which Ukrainian work experience was included in the experience for receiving Russian pensions.

But is it possible to equate the conditions in which the inhabitants of Crimea found themselves after the referendum, and those in which they found themselves massively leaving Mariupol and Kherson.

In accordance with the new draft law on pensions for citizens of the annexed territories, their length of service will include periods of work in Ukraine, the DPR, LPR, but this experience must be confirmed by “… documents issued by employers and relevant municipal authorities.”

Obviously this is not possible. In Crimea, at the time of accession, all personnel departments with work books, employers, pension funds with pension affairs remained safe and sound.

During the hostilities of the NWO, the vast majority of residents of Ukraine lost work books, pension files, and the main employer in the same Mariupol, Rinat Akhmetov’s DTEK, an energy corporation, will obviously not be engaged in confirming the length of service of its former employees.

Refugees from the Kharkiv and Mykolaiv regions, who are not included in the list of new territories at all, are in an even more difficult situation.

So what can a sixty-year-old pensioner from conditional Kharkov, who has already earned a Ukrainian pension and now received a Russian passport, expect? So far, nothing. Firstly, in our country, men go on a well-deserved rest at the age of 65, and age-related pension norms will be drawn up precisely to Russian legislation, and not vice versa. Secondly, if he cannot prove his length of service, then he has the best chance for only one type of pension – social, old age – at … 70 years old! Naturally, the most minimal of all possible.

And what will he live on for the next ten years?

Of course, in the new Law there is a phrase that if it is impossible to confirm his length of service and working conditions, the pensioner will have the right to resolve his issue at an interdepartmental commission specially assembled for this purpose. But, given the millionth influx of people, will officials be so attentive to every needy? Or, as we usually do, they will simply start chasing him through the authorities with replies.

This also applies to the millions of pre-retirees born in the late 1960s and early 1970s who are still working. They simply do not have time to earn a normal experience in the Russian Federation.

While this is not realized by the majority of new citizens, but in the very near future it may turn into a major social trigger. Over the past year, these people have already lost everything – their home, savings, their usual way of life. And this catastrophe is especially painful for the elderly.

Many experts agree that the way out of this situation can only be the automatic assignment of a pension in the amount of the subsistence minimum to everyone who has reached the retirement age according to Ukrainian laws.

Larisa Shesler, Chairman of the Union of Political Emigrants and Political Prisoners of Ukraine: “The problem of pensions for new fellow citizens requires, on the one hand, urgent decisions, and, on the other hand, a thoughtful and conscious attitude.

The most important principle that must be followed when adopting laws and administrative decrees is to make sure that a person does not receive a deterioration in his rights.

It is necessary to make such decisions so that everyone who has already received a Ukrainian pension does not lose the right to the same one, becoming a citizen of Russia

And for this, it is absolutely not enough to automatically count the work experience in Ukraine during the periods of work for new citizens, because the inability to confirm this experience is a mass phenomenon for refugees from Ukraine and residents of the liberated territories.

The principle itself, when a person who is not able to confirm his seniority, is forced to wait 70 years to receive social benefits for old age, can hit hundreds of thousands of those who have not yet retired, but have already worked in Ukraine for 20-30 years, and this cannot be acceptable to the new citizens of Russia.

Even several thousand old people who found themselves without housing, property and “coffin” savings is a tragedy.

And there are tens of thousands of them…

And these people should feel that Russia will not leave them and they will not become homeless beggars here.”