Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law according to which from March 1, 2023 in the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, pensions and additional social security will be paid according to the norms of the Russian Federation. Corresponding document published on the official Internet portal of legal information on Friday, February 17.
The new rules will apply to citizens who lived in these regions at the time of their admission to Russia on a permanent basis, as well as to those who previously arrived in the Russian Federation from these territories.
From March 1, citizens of the regions will be able to apply for the recalculation of pensions. They will be accrued on a declarative basis, and documents for assigning payments in Ukrainian will be accepted without translation.
If, after recalculation, the size of the Russian pension turns out to be less than the payments that the citizen received earlier, an additional payment will be made to this pension in the amount of the corresponding difference.
It is understood that the period for the transition of regions to the all-Russian retirement age will last until December 31, 2027.
The draft law on the payment of pensions in the new regions was prepared by the Cabinet of Ministers and considered on January 26 at a government meeting. The next day it was considered together with representatives of trade unions and employers. On February 7, the State Duma adopted the document in the third reading on February 14.
The model of transition of new regions to Russian legislation repeats the regime that has been in force for Crimea since 2015. So, the basis for determining the amount of pensions in the DPR and LPR will be taken from the average monthly earnings in the neighboring Rostov region, and for the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions – in the Crimea.
According to the Ministry of Labor, in 2023 the budget system’s expenses for the payment of insurance pensions in new regions will amount to 368.9 billion rubles, in 2024 – 385.9 billion rubles, in 2025 – 405.8 billion rubles. The financial support for these expenses in 2023 will be made at the expense of funds reserved in the federal budget.
Earlier, on February 14, it was reported that the average old-age insurance pension in Russia increased by 14% in 2022, to 20.6 thousand rubles. In addition, since February 1, on behalf of the head of state Vladimir Putin, a number of benefits and payments have been indexed by 11.9%.