Reznikov and Zaluzhnyi ask the parliament to postpone consideration of the draft law on the return of 30 000 military personnel

The Minister of Defense Oleksiy Reznikov and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhnyi appealed to the parliament to postpone the consideration of draft law No. 8312 on the return of additional payments of 30 000 hryvnias to the military.

This was announced on May 2 by the head of the "Servant of the People" faction David Arahamiya.

Instead, they are asking to assemble a working group of representatives of the Verkhovna Rada, the government, and the General Staff, and by the end of May, jointly develop a draft law that will regulate the issue of the remuneration of defenders.

The military is against this draft law, because:

• it does not resolve issues related to monetary remuneration, in particular, conscripts and cadets;
• its text does not take into account the peculiarities of serving in different regions and performing tasks of varying degrees of complexity;
• the labor payment system must be fair and provided with budget funding, and not just exist on paper (the draft law did not specify where to get the money to return the payments);
• populism in this matter can have extremely negative consequences and cause disappointment.

The letter was signed by the Minister of Defense Oleksiy Reznikov, the Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces Serhiy Shaptala, the head of the State Border Service Serhiy Deyneko, Commander of the National Guard Yurii Lebid, the head of the SBU Vasyl Malyuk.

• On April 10, 2023, the MPs supported an amendment to draft law No. 8312, which provides for the return of additional payments of 30 000 hryvnias to all military, police and rescue workers until the end of martial law. It is also planned to limit the salaries of top officials to 10 minimum salaries. However, the amendment does not specify where the money for these payments will come from. The IMF called this draft law "unbalanced" because it does not specify sources of financing.
• From February 1, 2023, Ukraine changed the order of payments to military personnel. They began to depend on the areas of stay, the complexity and specifics of performing combat or special tasks. 100 000 were received by those soldiers who were in the immediate combat zone. 30 000 were received by those who served in a unit included in the Defense Forces or in the reserve of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, were not in the area of hostilities, but were performing combat tasks.