Financial Support in the Armed Forces of Ukraine — What Changes are Prepared for the Military.

In 2022, thousands of men and women joined the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to defend the country from a full-scale invasion by Russian occupiers. Currently, many citizens continue to serve in the army and receive financial support from the state. Meanwhile, the authorities may change the mechanism for calculating payments to defenders. The editorial team of Novyny.LIVE elaborates on this.

What is Wrong with the Financial Support of Servicemen

A draft law No. 13449 'On Amendments to Some Laws of Ukraine Regarding Military Service in Wartime and Modernizing the Level of Financial Support for Servicemen' has been registered on the website of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (VRU). The authors of the document want to modernize the payments to servicemen, as the current system of calculations is outdated. As stated in the explanatory note, according to military legislation, the amount of financial support for a defender depends on the intensity of military service — based on the fact that military personnel belong to the category of civil servants. At the same Time, the legislation lacks evaluative criteria for military service that do not depend on the presence or absence of combat tasks that servicemen must perform.

'Thus, servicemen lack a guaranteed dynamic increase in salaries, as a direct factor in motivating the military and recognizing their special contribution to the country's defense capability, based on current conditions.'

What Changes are Desired

Thus, the draft law proposes that for determining the level of intensity of military service, the following should be taken into account: - martial law; - the location of the military unit directly in the combat zone, where servicemen serve regardless of their position and direct participation in battles to repel and counter armed aggression. In simple terms, Parliament is advised to differentiate the level of intensity as a factor that will influence the amount of financial support during military service. For this purpose, the draft law provides for amendments to two laws: 'On Social and Legal Protection of Servicemen and Their Families' and 'On Pension Provision for Persons Dismissed from Military Service and Some Other Persons'. In the first, it is proposed to supplement Article 9-2, which defines rewards for servicemen during martial law (special period), with norms on the application of coefficients to determine the amount of additional payments to military personnel: - if a serviceman serves in areas directly conducting hostilities — a coefficient of 3 will be applied; - if participating in battles along the line of contact with enemy military units — a coefficient of 5 will be applied. The coefficient of 3 is proposed to apply to the monthly financial support of servicemen who serve or ensure the combat readiness of units directly in combat task areas during martial law. And the coefficient of 5 — to the monthly financial support of defenders who participate in battles along the line of contact or defend Ukraine in combat areas, in temporarily occupied territories, between the positions of defense forces and aggressor troops or on the territory of the aggressor state during martial law — for each day of performing such tasks. Amendments in the second law propose to officially establish the norm that the total amount of financial support taken into account when calculating military pensions consists of all additional payments (except for one-time ones). Earlier, we talked about financial assistance for defenders. We explained, in particular, how payments are calculated. Learn also how much will be paid to servicemen starting in August. During military service, it is important not only to participate in defending the state but also to have guaranteed financial support. The previously outdated system of payments may be changed for the benefit of military personnel by considering the intensity of their service.