“We didn’t send you there,” this is a usual way the Soviet officials denied benefits to Afghan soldiers. You can also hear similar stories about the cynical attitude towards the Ukrainian fighters, who fought in the East. Over the past five years, tens of thousands of people have passed through the crucible of the Russian-Ukrainian war. Many of them returned crippled mentally and physically, in need of treatment, rehabilitation, benefits. Who will handle this tangle of problems?
Minister and website
The warriors do not always find understanding among the civilian population ‒ officials, service personnel, and even close associates. Probably everyone heard the stories about arrogant drivers of minibusses, who demanded money from the defenders of Ukraine and parishioners of the Moscow church, called our heroes murderers of “brothers-Russians”. And still, war-tired fighters have to overcome numerous bureaucratic barriers to prove obvious things. It exhausts, annoys, humiliates.
The Government decided that a separate department should deal with veterans, and they have created a new structure ‒ the Ministry of Veteran Affairs. More than three months ago, it was headed by Iryna Friz, at that time the deputy of the Parliament of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security and Defense. The ministry will appear on the basis of the State Service for War Veterans, which will be liquidated by the end of spring.
“There is no separate line in the state budget for 2019, regarding the activities of the Ministry, because the budget was approved on the day when the minister was elected,” Iryna Friz told to DUMKA. “We will make changes to the state budget for the second half of the year and, as the successors of the State Service for the Affairs of War Veterans, will take over the functionality, powers and budget allocations provided for this service.”
“In fact, the process of creating the Ministry will last a year, but in June-July we will be able to start sorting out the functions of other departments, first of all, the Ministry of Social Policy,” Vitaliy Kuzmenko, the Russian-Ukrainian war veteran, a member of the Ministry of Veterans Affairs, explained to DUMKA. “By this time, changes to the existing programs, as well as new programs to support veterans (for adaptation, rehabilitation, medicine) should already be prepared. The main directions in the work of the Ministry should be social support, medicine, remembrance. The main task is to support veterans in the process of dismissal from service and adaptation to civilian life.”
Until now, one person worked at the Ministry of Veterans Affairs ‒ the minister, and it is planned to employ more than 300 people (more than a third of the territorial bodies). At the end of 2018, the official website of the department was launched. Judging by its content, the Minister holds meetings, attends various events. Website sections ‒ granting statuses, treatment, and rehabilitation, social and professional adaptation, housing and land, benefits and discounts. The Secretary of State, after his appointment, has to approve the staff number and structure of the Ministry and declare a job vacancy. In early February, the contest was won by Lyudmyla Darahan, assistant to the deputy Oleksii Poroshenko (BPP). According to media reports, Ms. Darahan has already worked with Iryna Friz on the “Ukraine-Solidarity-NATO” project. Ministry’s Secretary of State should be approved by the Cabinet of Ministers.
How many veterans?
Recently, President Poroshenko has signed the bill №9508 “On Amendments to the Law ‘On the Status of War Veterans, Guarantees of their Social Protection’ on the Unified State Register of War Veterans”. We are talking about the information and telecommunications system for collecting, registering, storing, protecting and depersonalizing information about war veterans, as well as individuals, who have rendered special services to their Homeland, injured participants in the Revolution of Dignity, members of the families of such persons and others, which are subject to this law.
The creation of the State Register, as Iryna Friz noted on the departmental website, will provide an opportunity to find out the exact number of the veterans, calculate what benefits, services and how much they need. After all, this data is very different: the Ministry of Social Policy, the State Service for the Affairs of War Veterans, the departments of the security structures provide various information, which cannot provide a clear picture. Ms. Friz clarified to DUMKA that, according to the Law, a plan for creating and administering the Unified State Register, which is being developed, should be submitted for approval by the Cabinet of Ministers within one month.
“Creating a unified register of veterans is one of the priorities,” Vitaliy Kuzmenko is convinced. “Verification of data for each veteran should be a prerequisite. There is a reason to believe that this will significantly change the number of those, who fall under veteran status, and, accordingly, will release funds that can be directed to the programs for real veterans. It is important to make a complex decision at the start of the Ministry of Veterans Affairs. In addition to the registration, a new basic law on veterans should be adopted. It will clearly define who the veteran is. To update the support system and provide services to the veteran, so they meet the requirements of the time. After all, the current law is based on the Soviet legacy of a command economy and an era of deficiency.”
How many veterans are in Ukraine now? According to Mr. Kuzmenko, various departments give a different number ‒ from 1,400,000 to 1,600,000 people. This data includes those, who have status in accordance with the law on the status of veterans of war (participants in combat operations, persons with disabilities resulting from war, war participants, families of victims, victims of the Revolution of Dignity) and the law on veterans of military service (for all military, law enforcement groups). The only group, for which statistics are known is the participants in the hostilities of the Russian-Ukrainian war (there is a separate database since the beginning of the war), the information is updated monthly. But, although, it is known how many people have received the status, there is no understanding of their condition, health, needs.
“In our country, in terms of the quantity of anything, there is total chaos, because the old accounting system is practically ruined and a new one was not created,” Oleh Zhdanov, a military expert, assured DUMKA. “We are in a limbo between paper and electronic accounting. Therefore, nobody will name the exact number of voters, nor the population, nor, moreover, veterans of the security forces or other paramilitary organizations.”
The Ministry of Social Policy is for what?
The scope of work on the problems of veterans is quite wide. However, is there a need for a whole Ministry? Its creation and operation ‒ an additional burden on the state budget, the bloated bureaucratic apparatus will also grow. Maybe a separate department in the Ministry of Social Policy would be enough?
“There is a need for the existence of the Ministry of Veterans Affairs, other executive authorities engaged in veterans episodically and unsystematically,” a veteran of the Russian-Ukrainian war Roman Kulyk, an employee of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance told to DUMKA. “A number of unresolved problems shows the lack of effectiveness of their work. The Ministry of Social Policy has repeatedly demonstrated a lack of understanding of the modern veteran movement, especially with regard to the introduction of a competitive system for allocating funding for projects for veterans. But will the Ministry of Veterans Affairs work properly or whether it will become a bureaucratic hole depends on many factors: leadership, financing, high-quality personnel, sticking of its authority and resources to other departments. So far, it has gained a position with the territorial subdivisions in each region ‒ and this is already positive, albeit there are only 5 people.”
However, not all experts are convinced of the need for a separate ministry. According to Oleh Zhdanov, the number of officials in the country may soon exceed the number of the working population that gives real incomes. Since the whole world is on the path of optimization, then we should have done so.
“If we are talking about the European vector of development, then it does not make sense to create such a ministry,” Mr. Zhdanov says. “The Department in the Ministry of Social Policy would be enough, even without increasing the staff, due to optimization. Reduce the burden on the budget, limit the number of officials, so that it would be easier for them to work in one structure. Unfortunately, the current leadership of the state keeps a strict vector on bureaucratization, and it creates ministries for veterans, information policy, and temporarily occupied territories and internally displaced persons of Ukraine.”
The current Cabinet of Ministers is structurally outdated and does not correspond to the problems of society. Such a structure satisfies the interests of members of parliamentary factions, ready to promote their protégés directly from the Verkhovna Rada. Often, separate units of the Government are machines for pumping out money in favor of financial and political clans. Such thoughts were voiced to DUMKA by the economist Volodymyr Lanovyi, former Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine.
“Almost all Government structures, first of all, the ministries, as well as 40 committees, agencies, services are independent from the point of view of legal and financial functioning, and this, perhaps, suits everyone in the Parliament, because any nonsense can be promoted,” Mr. Lanovyi continued. “No one knows what they do. In fact, these are switching divisions, and when, let’s say, the President needs some figures, they lower tasks along the entire “ladder”. And this is called “effective management”. If the Government worked effectively, then there would be a different dynamics of the economy, other resources on the ground, small and medium businesses would operate differently. This ministry (the Ministry of Veterans Affairs ‒ Ed. note) was created from a subjective point of view to satisfy someone’s demands. Any social issue should be reflected in the Ministry of Social Policy. Since it only aggravates the social situation, I would liquidate it or transfer it to another regime, let’s say, as a division of the Ministry of Finance.”
Commemoration
However, the train of the Ministry of Veterans Affairs is unlikely to be stopped. It is hoped that the structure will be truly effective and that the Public Council under the Ministry will contribute to this. The rating Internet voting for its composition took place on February 28, and on March 6 was announced at the founding meeting. Within three days, the protocol will be submitted to the Ministry for approval. Vitaliy Kuzmenko, the chairman of the constituent assembly of the Public Council at the Ministry of Veterans Affairs, pointed to attempts by non-passing candidates to disrupt the work of the meeting. Therefore, there was a separate appeal to the Ministry ‒ to transfer to the law enforcement agencies an electronic voting protocol for verification, in order to drop any accusations about the results.
“The main tasks of the Public Council are to ensure public control over the activities of the Ministry, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, to be a guide for the veterans’ public opinion and public initiatives in its work,” Kuzmenko explained. “to develop new approaches and solutions together with the Ministry.”
The new Ministry is not only engaged in the urgent affairs of veterans ‒ social protection, medical support, the development of electronic products for the State Register and the E-veteran platform, but also will deal with humanitarian policy. Iryna Friz commented to DUMKA on the development of the State program of national-patriotic education, the formation of a positive image of veterans, the introduction of the Memorial Day for those who were killed in the Russian-Ukrainian war and the Veterans Day. In her opinion, the issue of Veterans Day needs a public discussion.
“We need detailed consultations with the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance and the veteran environment,” Roman Kulyk says. “Since there is October 14 (the Day of the Defender of Ukraine, the Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos and the Day of the Ukrainian Cossacks coincide), December 6 (the Day of the Armed Forces of Ukraine ‒ Ed. note). There are quite a lot of dates, relating to the Army and veterans, so as not to cause confusion, we need to think about it.”
Vitaliy Kuzmenko noted that the Veterans Day, as such, is already celebrated on October 1, along with the International Day of Older Persons. This day is associated with the older generation of veterans. In his opinion, the introduction of the national Day of memory of those who were killed in the Russian-Ukrainian war will be more relevant.
By Viktor Tsvilihovsky
