A fine line between 'us' and 'them'
Special for Zn.ua
Editor's note:
Ukraine is experiencing a tragedy when the aggressor bites off live pieces of our territory every day. Along with our people. The government’s position is certain in relation to those who remained in the temporarily occupied territories for various reasons: to pay salaries and social benefits, to help as much as possible. We are going to get our cities back, and people have to survive meanwhile.
However, there are temporarily occupied territories and people of the so-called first wave, with whom the government "has been sorting out staff" for all the eight years of war (it must be admitted, not always in a correct way). The government has been arranging social payments and pensions with them, and now, in fact, it is at war with them. A huge part of IDPs and pensioners are only registered in Ukraine but they live in the so-called LPR/DPR. Currently, men there are being mobilized en masse. The attitudes in these territories about Ukraine are quite consistent with the russian propaganda (with rare exceptions).
What must be done here? What should the government be guided by? Should Ukrainian citizens pay the pensions to the parents of the "DPR" soldiers? The line is so fine and controversial that the coverage by the authors of the Civil Network OPORA, as part of our joint project, is by far the first piece in Ukrainian media to touch upon these issues. You might agree or disagree with the position presented here, but you cannot deny the problem.
Russia seeks to integrate the occupied territories of Ukraine into its political, economic, and educational space. They are increasingly pressing the residents of the temporarily occupied territories (TOT). Our government resists the attempts, fulfilling its social obligations to citizens in the occupied communities. Pension payments were a sensitive political issue after 2014, associated with the blatantly discriminatory steps made by officials. However, today Ukraine sends a clear signal to the residents of the TOTs: social obligations to them have been and will be fulfilled. In response, the occupiers try to discredit the Ukrainian authorities by sharing disinformation about the termination of pension payments.
Who will be the winner in the unequal struggle for the inhabitants of the Russia-captured communities? Does the Ukrainian government distinguish between the occupied territories and citizens of the first and second waves of occupation? Should they be distinguished at all?
All these issues are not only about the competence of our heroic Armed Forces, but also about the motivation of officials who have to respond to the problems of residents of the TOTs and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in a timely and flexible manner. It is also about the government’s responsibility, as it is obliged to develop a clear strategy for relations with the people staying under the occupation. At the same time, the skill and motivation of officials depend on the ability of society to play the long game, not to forget about fellow citizens under the occupation, and to distinguish between the truth and fakes of russia about the moods among the inhabitants of the occupied territories.
Instructed to survive. How the Government Fulfills Its Social Commitments to the Residents of the TOTs and to IDPs
Representatives of the Ukrainian state clearly communicate their message that the "survive" button is the most important on the control panel today. No one will be looking for excuses to abandon their citizens. To be honest, since 2014, residents of TOTs and the IDPs have seen different shades of state policy, and part of it was definitely not about people — there were the humiliating "door-to-door" checks, sudden cessation of payments, and ongoing bank "verifications". Nowadays, human rights activists and officials have a common position on the priority of social policy in the Russia-seized territories. The goal is to help people survive.
On July, 1, with account for the security situation and the inability to physically deliver cash, the Ukrposhta national postal service stopped operating in the temporarily occupied territories. Many pensioners who did not register their bank cards could receive their pensions in cash through the Ukrposhta local branches. For example, in Kherson oblast, it is 70,000 people. Cash payouts have been suspended. The occupation administration is spreading information that Ukraine has allegedly forgotten about the inhabitants of the occupied territories and stopped paying social benefits. However, this is not the case. This information was first refuted by the Mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, followed by the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine.
Kherson region, July 2022. StopCorr
According to Deputy Minister of Social Policy Vitalii Muzychenko, in the occupied territories, Ukraine continues to accrue the payments of all basic social guarantees to which citizens were entitled until this February. Those are pensions, welfare payments, social assistance and even preferences and subsidies. The Ministry also offers several mechanisms that can be used remotely, via the Internet, to open a bank account and transfer your pension or other payments there. In other words, if citizens used to receive cash payments in Ukrposhta before February, 24, 2022, now they can remotely transfer them to a card and have the survival resources.
"Today, we are introducing other technologies that allow us to use funds primarily for those people who are leaving the temporarily occupied territories. However, since every day it is getting increasingly more difficult to leave the occupied territories, we focus on ensuring that people can remotely, via the Internet, transfer their pensions or social payments to their bank accounts. This can be done through the electronic account of a pensioner or with the help of PrivatBank,"— said Vitalii Muzychenko on the program "The Occupied"on the YouTube channel "OPORA Speaks".
In the occupied territories, there is no Ukrainian signal or the Internet. Therefore, officials recommend that TOTs residents use VPN services that ensure anonymity online. However, blocking communication and the Internet is not the only challenge. Under the occupation, people do not have the opportunity to withdraw cash from their bank cards or pay for groceries via the payment terminal. That is why, for many people, the availability of funds in their own accounts is not the final solution to a difficult life situation. russians bring their payment systems to the captured territories, and systematically interrupt the circulation of hryvnia. In fact, the only possible option to use their money, for people who cannot leave for the government-controlled territories, would be the services of local "money-changers." "Cashing out" the pensions and other payments at an interest (2% to 10%) is totally a déjà vu from Donetsk and Luhansk, where residents have long passed through this stage of the russian occupation. The occupation of different waves has a common algorithm, even in detail: russians bring death, destruction, the desolation of cities, the destruction of basic services for citizens and schemes to profiteer on people’s misery.
Melitopol occupied by the russian troops. July, 14, 2022 Getty Images
However, despite all the challenges, the actual situation with Ukrainian payments is crucially different from the russian propaganda. All those who used to receive payments as of the beginning of the full-scale aggression, keep having them accrued by the state. This applies not only to residents of newly captured territories but also to internally displaced persons from the "old" waves of relocation from Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk. For the latter, verification procedures have been canceled or postponed since the recent quarantine. Besides, refugees outside Ukraine also receive their payments without any problems. The only concern is that they should not take breaks longer than six months in using the cards, so that there is no suspicion of a person's death or that someone else might be using the money.
“In fact, this is a huge step, a huge opportunity not to carry along an IDP certificate, as a “star of David,” to get access to basic services. In fact, COVID showed for the first time that you do not have to come to an IDP’s home, and the world will not collapse. The second huge step was taken when after the large-scale aggression from the russian federation an approach changed to the criteria for IDPs to receive the services. And now I must say that, in fact, the state is as loyal as possible," — says the director for legal issues of the “Stabilization Support Services” Charity, Valeria Vershynina, about the new social reality.
There is another important aspect to consider. The possibility for residents of newly captured territories to receive their payments without "fictitious" registration as IDPs, which previously concerned Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimean residents, strengthens the ability of the state and international donors to forecast their programs for internally displaced persons and controlled territories. Previously, the ambiguity in the number of IDPs (when there was one number but they needed to deduce the de facto residents of the TOTs), affected the most the actual displaced citizens. Since it was impossible to establish their real (not paper-based) number, it would often be used as an excuse why housing and other programs have not yet been implemented for them.
"Old IDPs": who keeps receiving Ukrainian pensions under the first wave occupation and what happens next
Pensions for citizens of Ukraine who stayed in Donetsk, Luhansk, and other previously-seized territories have their own peculiarities. In order to receive their money, they had to register as internally displaced persons from the very beginning and live government-controlled territory “on paper.” Since 2014, they have been required to undergo regular physical checks and bank verifications, but a large part of IDPs formally continued to live in the occupied territories. The political emotions would label the phenomenon as the "pension tourism” but the expensive crossings between checkpoints and queues to banks really had nothing to do with the comfort of a tourist. According to rough estimates, out of 1,4 mln IDPs (+/-) registered by February, 2022, approximately half of them continued to reside in the temporarily occupied territories. Not all of them are pensioners or were entitled to other benefits but the trend is clear.
Where there are checks and queues, misuse and abuse would inevitable come, in the Ukrainian context. The Security Service of Ukraine regularly reported on the disclosed schemes incorporated by officials when pensions were paid to the "dead souls." The debate on whether to pay pensions to the TOTs residents, they often overlooked the fact that such fraud was caused by abuses of officials, not by pensioners themselves. One way or another, before the second stage of aggression, payments to the residents of the TOTs have been an extremely politically conflicting and socially sensitive issue.
"Discussions about payments to residents of the occupied territories would often refer to the Geneva Conventions that allegedly shift all responsibility for social payments to the occupiers. This is a myth, since these conventions do not regulate the issue of social benefits. It would also be strange to expect russia, which is carrying out barbaric aggression against Ukraine, to care about Ukrainian citizens. The Ukrainian state has obligations to citizens who worked and paid taxes in our country. These obligations are enshrined in the Constitution of Ukraine, which means that Ukrainian citizens, regardless of their place of residence, even under the occupation, have fair expectations for receiving the pension. Another issue is the procedures and the possibility to pay off the money," says Aliona Luniova, Advocacy Manager of the ZMINA Human Rights Center.
Despite the requirement to formally become an IDP and the excessive criteria in the procedures, the government still resolved the dispute in favor of pensioners. Many of them (not all, though) had the opportunity to receive their money through registration as IDPs and through periodic verification. Since the quarantine, verification of pensioners from the "old" TOTs has been suspended, and they still receive their money to the accounts. Some residents of the "old" TOTs may have their bank cards expired and will not have access to money until they receive a new card. However, the payments keep being accrued to them. As to the payment of pensions for those citizens from the TOTs who have not yet applied for them since 2014, there are certain peculiarities to consider. The same concerns cases when the payments have been terminated, for various reasons. In this case, the pension will be restored. However, the money for the missed years will be paid not at once but with a deferral, and for a certain period (not more than three years) for which the funds are "reimbursed". This approach does not suit everyone but even before the full-scale invasion of the russian federation, the amounts of the unpaid pensions looked unfeasible for the government.
At the heart of the painful debate about pensions in the TOTs, however camouflaged, was the question: who do we consider people under the occupation, and does the government have any obligations to them? The protracted occupation inevitably exacerbated the problem of collaborators and encouraged everyone to color everyone with the same brush, and russia's war crime of forced mobilization of citizens in the TOTs of Donetsk and Luhansk only increased the temptation.
The situation in the territories newly captured by russia has reduced the severity of the conflict between "radicals" and "humanists" regarding payments to residents in the TOTs, when the conditionality of division between their own and others under occupation became more clear. However, today, there are calls to differentiate approaches to the inhabitants of the old and new occupied territories. As far as certain nuances, the appeals may look reasonable, but strategically dangerous. With each day of the occupation, the situation in Melitopol is getting more and more similar to the situation in Luhansk. The intensity of the occupation measures will certainly affect the strategy of the government but it should not determine its motivation to maintain ties with its citizens in the occupation.
Occupation implies that the actions and declared views of ordinary people often depend on the survival conditions established by the violent occupiers. This should always be kept in mind.
However, in the event of the delayed deoccupation prospects, the government must be ready for the requirements to hold a new discussion and offer a holistic and reasonable model for the current reality. Otherwise, society is doomed to emotional turmoil. We have faced this more than once, but at the moment the risks are higher. In particular, economically weakened by the aggressor's actions, Ukraine will find it even more difficult to fulfill its social obligations. Furthermore, calls to "shoot from the hip" may sound stronger than ever. Transparency, openness and... non-corruption of the government's plans for the TOTs is a guarantee of consensus of citizens around the solution of unprecedented problems. In both the free, and in the occupied territories.