Families of soldiers killed in captivity will be paid UAH 15 million, regardless of the cause of death. There is a nuance

A one-time cash payment of UAH 15 million can now be received by family members of servicemen who died in captivity during martial law — now the cause of death of the soldiers will not affect this. However, the law does not apply to the families of those soldiers who surrendered to captivity voluntarily.

Such amendments to the Law "On Social and Legal Protection of Military Personnel and Members of Their Families" No. 13168 were adopted by the Verkhovna Rada at a meeting on July 16. The details of the amendments are explained by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Social Policy and Protection of Veteransʼ Rights Taras Tarasenko.

Now the law directly states: if a soldier dies in captivity, the family has the right to assistance — regardless of the exact cause of death.

The key problem, according to Taras Tarasenko, was that the cause of death of soldiers whose bodies were returned from captivity was determined by Ukrainian forensic experts. And most often they recorded death from disease. Because of this, families received significantly less assistance than for deaths on the battlefield.

The law also extended the period for payment of a one-time benefit — instead of three months, it is now given for a whole year. This applies to cases when a soldier was wounded, injured, contused, or fell ill during service, which partially caused him to lose his ability to work, even if he was not diagnosed with disability. This also applies to those who were discharged from the army for the same reasons.

The Ministry of Defense explains that in practice it often happened that due to long treatment, rehabilitation, or the unitʼs stay in the combat zone, the military did not have time to collect all the necessary documents and did not have time to receive a one-time cash benefit on time.

The new law also changed the procedure for calculating the benefit in the event of a change in the disability group. Now the amount of the benefit will be calculated based on the subsistence minimum for able-bodied people, which is in effect on January 1 of the year when the new group was established. Previously, it was calculated based on the data at the time of the first disability determination.

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