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Developments in eastern Ukraine

Luhansk republic leader pledges social payments are made in full

Plotnitsky commented on reports that LPR’s pension fund and social welfare agency allegedly want to stop making social payments to residents in case they receive payments from Ukraine

© Taras Dudnik/TASS

MOSCOW, July 28. /TASS/. The self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) is fulfilling all its social commitments in full, LPR head Igor Plotnitsky told Luhansk Inform Center on Tuesday.

Read also

Ukraine’s average monthly pension stands at $72.5 — pension fund head

Social payments, including pensions, will be made in routine mode, Plotnitsky said commenting on reports that LPR’s pension fund and social welfare agency allegedly want to stop making social payments to residents in case they receive payments from Ukraine.

"Kiev evades fulfilling social commitments to Donbas residents, and the Luhansk People’s Republic fulfills and will continue fulfilling all commitments in full," Plotnitsky said. "Pensions will be paid on the territory of the republic in a routine mode - in rubles, social payments - in hryvnias and rubles, salaries of state employees - in all possible currencies," he added.

The LPR head also noted that it is possible that some residents both in LPR and Ukraine receive "double" pensions because it is impossible to check lists of those eligible for payments.

"Kiev is always talking about ‘territorial integrity’ and ‘united Ukraine’, but this did not prevent it from depriving Donbass residents of pensions and social payments. Thus, they [Ukrainian authorities] have once again broken the commitments that they assumed in the framework of the Minsk agreements. Pensioners have not seen any payments from Ukraine since last year’s spring, but I guarantee it that the republic [LPR] will pay pensions," Plotnitsky said.

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DPR and LPR’s joint statement on social payments

Kiev has to make social payments, including pensions, to citizens of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics (DPR and LPR), DPR’s and LPR’s envoys to Contact Group Denis Pushilin and Vladislav Deinego said in a joint statement published on the Donetsk News Agency’s website earlier on Tuesday.

"One of the acutest problems of current political dialogue with Ukraine are social payments to Donbas residents," the statement said.

"One of the proposals to solve this problem was to open a branch of any Ukrainian bank in Donetsk and Luhansk through which Ukraine could make appropriate social payments. However, the Ukrainian side, due to lacking possibility or reluctance, refused to fulfill this option of settling the situation, despite the fact that this recommendation is fixed by the Package of measures on implementation of the Minsk agreements," the document added.

The statement noted that "the last proposals put forward the idea of setting up mobile banks along the contact line." "We personally support this option, and we stated this repeatedly at last meetings of the Contact Group," Pushilin and Deinego said.

"We think that making social payments, including pensions, is not Ukraine’s right to manage people’s savings but rather a responsibility to make them," the document said.

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