In 2023, 93 Russian officials and volunteers could have been killed or injured in the occupied territories of Ukraine. “Important Stories” came to this conclusion after studying data from the Pension and Social Insurance Fund.
The state pays compensation for the injuries and deaths of government employees and volunteers who were sent on a business trip to the occupied Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, as well as to the self-proclaimed LPR and DPR. For injury there is a penalty of 3 million rubles, and for death — 5 million rubles. Last year, the total amount of payments from the Pension and Social Insurance Fund in this regard amounted to 372 million rubles. According to the calculations of «Important Stories», this could be enough to compensate for 93 people.
The largest amount of benefits under this article was paid in Moscow and the Moscow region — 174 million rubles. In second place are St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region — 77 million rubles. The third is the Chelyabinsk region, where they paid 20 million rubles. In total, compensation for dead and wounded volunteers and officials was received in 17 regions.
As “Important Stories” notes, it is impossible to say exactly how many people could have died or been injured on business trips in the occupied territories. Journalists found information about at least 40 officials and volunteers who died in Russian-controlled parts of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, in the LPR and DPR. They came from St. Petersburg, Leningrad, Astrakhan regions, as well as from annexed Crimea.
The number of civilian volunteers and civil servants whom the Russian authorities sent to the occupied territories of Ukraine is unknown. According to the head of Rosmolodezh Ksenia Razuvaeva, during the first year of the war the agency sent almost three thousand volunteers there.