The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, on Feb. 27 approved a bill of legal amendments on setting up a new ministry for veterans.
The bill, submitted to the parliament on Jan. 18, was supported by 241 lawmakers.
According to the law, the new ministry must be created on the basis of the already existing State Service on War Veterans and Participants of the Anti-Terrorist Operation.
Over the past three years, parliament has adopted 32 laws on social protection for veterans and their families in the wake of the launch of Russian aggression against Ukraine, the explanatory note to the bill says.
“However, the diffuse system of authorities responsible for those issues (over 20 ministries and departments, as well as local councils and authorities) has caused bureaucratic chaos, and interfered in the complete and timely resolution of important social issues for (combat veterans),” the document reads.
The law states that as of June 1, 2017 there were 457,700 registered combat veterans of various conflicts in Ukraine, including 300,200 participants of the Anti-Terrorist Operation – the legal term Ukraine formerly used to refer to Russia’s war in the Donbas. Some 138,600 veterans are disabled, with 5,500 of them Ukrainian combatants of the war in the east. Up to 211,400 persons are family members of veterans who were killed in the war, or who died afterwards, Some 8,000 are relatives of those killed in action in the east.
As the war continues, these figures keep growing. According to the law, as of January 2017 the number of Donbas veterans had increased to 324,000.
The note to the law also adds that the Rada had on Feb. 9 approached the cabinet to consider the question of setting up a veterans ministry. However, despite having endorsed the appeal, the government did not act.
The new law stipulates that the government must report to parliament about measures taken to set up the new ministry within a month.
According to Ivan Vinnyk, a lawmaker from the Petro Poroshenko Block, the new ministry will take care of all veteran of all wars, including World War II. Lawmaker Maksym Burbak, the leader of the Narodniy Front faction in parliament, said it would be based on the model of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs.
