This is how Ukraine ousts its citizens back to “LPR” and “DPR”. Part 1

Let’s go back to 2014 for a minute.

In July and August 2014, people flee their homes and leave the conflict zone with one suitcase only. They are running away from “Russian brothers’” help.

Ukrainian government stops paying all pensions and social allowances on the occupied Donbas territories as it is impossible to bring money there. Cash couriers’ cars are stopped and robbed, banks are robbed by armed militants as well, ATM are smashed and currency is stolen.

A special registration and a certificate for IDPs were introduced and a social allowance was allocated for each person who had that certificate. IDPs started to get 400-800 htyvnyas as a compensation for the accommodation rent. And that was it. You were left to survive.



A lot of IDPs understood and supported the decision as there was really no sense to send money to territories where it would be stolen and registration of those who had relocated was seen as a necessary step as well. People used to consider it a preliminary step conducted by the state to facilitate the process of integration into a new community. IDPs and civil servants remembered Georgia’s experience (this country built houses for the victims of its conflict with Russia in 2008).

However, time passed, nothing was done, IDPs were cared for by volunteers and the state just forgot about them.Volunteers were looking for accommodation, finding food, clothes and first aid kits. Some IDPs managed to solve their problems themselves. Young people could find job and accommodation, but single mothers, retirees and disabled people faced a lot of problems. Dwelling was the main one as you could find some job, but your salary even together with a welfare allowance and a pension could not cover the rent.

Everyone was expecting that the state would elaborate some mechanism helping people who were forced to flee the war to get special credits or land or some other kind of aid to build or buy some dwelling. Two years have passed. The state has not done anything for its citizens. On the contrary, it has created conditions which force IDPs to go back to the occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. It looks like IDPs are a burden for the state which wants to get rid of them.

Two waves of torture

We will concentrate on retirees, disabled people and single mothers.

Donbas IDPs are going to face two waves of torture in July and August. The first one concerns new rules for social allowances payment and the second one is an individual electronic retiree’s certificate.
Now, a special commission is to come to IDPs temporary houses (without any warning), to examine the conditions they live in and their financial status and to decide if they need renewal of social allowances payment or not.

The inspection is to check both those who have just left the occupied territories and those who have lived on liberated territories for these two years. Social services are to visit them once every six months. There are also special “mobile groups” consisting of police officers, representatives of the Home Ministry, the Pension Fund and the Social Security Service. The reason for their visit can be “information which they possess” about this or that person. This “information” can originate from social security services, volunteers, NGOs which help internally displaced persons, the Home Ministry, the Pension Fund, the Social Security Service. This means that either personal data is to be collected on a massive scale, or that neighbours, colleagues and other people will be encouraged to report to the authorities about all their “suspicions” as for IDP neighbours. Somehow, it looks like Stalin’s repression system.



If an IDP or his or her family is out of town at this time (a holiday, a family reunion in some other locality, or he or she is in hospital) and this person does not arrive into the Department of Social Security within three days, all welfare allowances will be cancelled and it will take half a year to re-alloctae them. What will the person eat during this half a year and how will he or she pay the rent? No one cares.


It looks like IDPs are turned into neo-serfs who are forced to stay at home and to wait for the state inspection not to lose this ridiculously little money they are paid as a compensation.

Another know-how is the fact that pensions, financial aid to single mothers and all other kinds of welfare payments are to be paid to IDPs in this way as well now.

New service "Explain Ukraine". This is a daily mailout of three articles which were written about the situation in the Donbas by Donbas journalists and translated into English. Honest vision of people who work in the field is unbiased and fresh which is crucial in the world which is full of desinformation and propaganda. We try to share this vision in out daily mailout.  You can subscribe here.