In the long list of promises broken by Ukrainian authorities in the past few years, failing to ensure decent care for war veterans can be easily tagged among the most distressful ones.
Indeed, despite having nearly 355,000 combatants of Russia’s war in the Donbas, Ukraine’s relations with its own retired defenders still go hand in hand with poor management, chronic underfunding, corruption, and even more of awing Soviet-style bureaucratic disorder.
The situation is so bad that even officials admit this.
However, a new hope is still around, with a brand new Ministry for Veteran Affairs officially launched in late 2018.
Its minister Iryna Friz, a former longtime press secretary for President Petro Poroshenko and later a lawmaker with his 139-strong parliament fraction, now vows to save the day, she told the Kyiv Post in an interview.
According to her, the old and ineffective system will be razed to the ground. Instead, a new united national program will be created to finally start ensuring decent health and social support of Ukrainian veterans, and issue cheap loans for their businesses, and promote their education at the country’s best universities.
But among that, the new government body formed declares to promote new traditions of Ukrainian veterancy and inspire the society itself to be more embracive toward their soldiers in their life after war.
Cold greeting
Launching the Ministry for Veteran Affairs was on the government’s plate through much of 2018, but the person intended to get ahead was not officially known until Nov. 28.
Friz’s appointment at Poroshenko’s suggestion was met with fierce criticism over her lack of experience in military or veteran support fields. Many were unhappy about the fact that the long-awaited ministry was not headed by a respected combat veteran, and found it a purely political-driven nomination of the president’s longtime loyal ally.
But in the Jan. 15 interview with the Kyiv Post, she said she doesn’t mind the criticism. She sees herself as an early-stage manager whose mission is to build a new ministry, so that it could be later handed over someone else from the growing community of veterans.
“I adhere to a realistic stance in this situation,” Friz said. “I clearly understand that a new parliament (elected on Oct. 27) would be forming a new government. Correspondingly, I got only up to one year as a minister for veteran affairs. Therefore I understand that a ministry created from scratch must get a proficient legal basis to operate, therefore I’m talking about sticking to this formula of me as a minister.”
In the future, if the new coalition resolves to appoint a combat veteran as a new minister, it would be “fine”, she added.
Bureaucratic mess
For years before, responsibility for veterans care was dispersed among as many as 22 various Ukrainian government agencies, ending up being stuck in the bureaucratic mess.
In particular, the State Service of War Veterans and Participants of the Anti-Terror Operation, with its Hr 109 million ($4.1 million) budget, remained next to being paralyzed for much of 2018, as it had failed to approve the regulator acts that would allow it to sign contracts to render services to veterans.
The newly-created Ministry for Veteran Affairs, with greater authority, is meant to ideally assume all matters regarding veteran care and terminate this disorder.
Its own budget for 2019 is still yet to be defined by the Cabinet of Ministers, but it is expected to be run by 325 civil servants, which includes 200 officials at the ministry itself and more 125 working in all of Ukraine’s regions.
All together, starting approximately from June, they would have to be managing the national care system for 355,000 veterans of the Donbas war and for nearly 1 million former combatants of other conflicts of the past starting from the last living World War II fighters.
However, even the exact statistics on the total number of all Ukrainian veterans is still basically unknown. By that reason, according to Friz, one of the indispensable priorities for her ministry would be to finally create a single unified register of persons having the right to appropriate veteran benefits and privileges.
Such a constantly updated official list would particularly help eliminate many of widespread corruption risks, such as the possibility of plundering funds allocated on phantom recipients of benefits.
New deal
Nearly all of the ministry’s components are expected to be launched under a newly created or deeply amended legal basis.
“The old system can’t be changed,” Friz said.
“We shall build a new one basing on three principles: Maximum understandability, maximum appropriateness to the veterans community’s needs, and maximum communication with the veteran community, which would help accumulate the ministry’s activities in the right direction.”
First and foremost, this would include a complete recast of privileges legally reserved for veterans. According to a law passed as far back as in 1993, Ukrainian combatants are entitled to enjoy 22 various kinds of services and benefits, such as free rides in public transport, or preferential access to medications and treatment at public hospitals, or 75 percent off utility tariffs.
Apart from poor providing, which often demanded from a veteran to break his way through humiliating hurdles of bureaucracy, such a menu exported directly from Soviet times in many ways stays out of touch with modern realities.
It particularly envisages the opportunity to install a free radio set or a telephone in a veteran’s apartment.
“This catalog must be amended, or even ideally rewritten from scratch,” she said.
“We will create a working group on producing a new law on veterans and social benefits… (All suggestions) will be going through public debate and the Council of Veterans in order to involve as many veterans as possible to drafting this law and have the most solid support from them.”
In general, the ministry would file three new draft laws that would also include a legal separation of combat veterans who had directly participated in hostilities for certain time from officials fulfilling non-combat tasks in the rear during conflicts.
The unclear mixture of the two categories in Ukrainian legislation begotten at the early stages of the war in Donbas a phenomenon of the so-called “chance comers” who had spent just days or even hours in the war zone or even in peaceful cities far behind the lines, but later managed to attain veteran status by using loose loopholes in qualification criteria.
The non-combat participants of military operations would also be regarded within the competence of the Ministry for Veteran Affairs, and with their own packages of guaranteed benefits depending on their record of service.
However, the new sets of privileges are still yet to be compiled by the ministry and veterans, Friz also added.
She insisted that all veterans of all conflicts living in Ukraine would be treated equally and just in ensuring their support.
“I stand up as a fervent advocate of not dividing veterans over wars, missions (they participated in), or over any other definitions that help undermine the veterans community,” the minister said.
In general, the departments would be concentrated on the worst neglected issues, such as healthcare and social adaptation for retired soldiers and officers of the Donbas war.
She also added that much attention would be paid to the commemoration of the fallen in action and to “promoting an absolutely new approach to veterans in society.”
Education and business
Another promising novelty announced by the ministry is the E-Veteran, an online service with the help of which a veteran would be able to get all information on benefits and discounts available for him.
Via a personal account on the website or a mobile app, a veteran will also be able to manage his allowances, such as various education courses, by actually using them or opting to take their money equivalent.
But then again, minister Friz added, launching this E-service would demand passing new legislation on social benefits and their monetization.
The ministry would also work on ensuring preferential education for retired military servicepersons.
Friz added that 100 veterans selected out of 500 candidates were already studying non-paid state management courses at the National Academy for Public Administration under the President of Ukraine in Kyiv.
“Our veteran community is rather young — don’t know if it’s good or bad, but that’s what we have,” she said.
“And it is very active — veterans are ready to receive an education. Besides, we’re advocating launching various new study courses at top universities especially for veterans. In this regard, we have a special fellowship at the Kyiv Mohyla Academy, thanks to which five fellows are studying for donor funding.”
Upon that, there are also plans to support veterans deciding to set up their own businesses after coming back from war.
According to Friz, she and her team are currently discussing with the Ministry of Economic Development a special veteran-targeted program that would particularly allow to reimburse up to 50 percent of expenses on purchasing equipment and vehicles, or partially compensate bank loans, or sponsor veteran-owned startups.
The range of business industries covered by the support program would include retail sales, food, agriculture, IT, printing, building materials, light industry, and bookkeeping and judicial services, the minister said.
The proposed program envisages compensating 20, 30, or 50 percent of a loan.
Besides, veterans could enjoy seriously relieved loan conditions — while the county’s National Bank currently sets its interest rate at 18 percent, the special veteran program would cut it down to only 4 percent.
“I think this is very good,” Friz said.
“If we have the support of the Ministry of Finance, we do not exclude planning to launch this program next year.”
