OE Watch Commentary: Despite economic challenges, the Kremlin continues to place a high priority on military readiness and modernization. Pay and benefits for military personnel remain key components behind the improved morale and status of Russia’s armed forces. As reported in the March 2018 OE Watch, (“Promised Pay Raise for Military”) officers and contract personnel received a hefty pay increase beginning in January. According to the brief excerpted article from the pro-Kremlin source Izvestiya, this economic largesse will also soon apply “to the unemployed spouses of officers and contract soldiers” in “military towns and garrisons [where] they have no opportunity to find a job.”
As the article points out, this unemployment allowance (9,489 rubles or about $170 a month) compensates for lack of employment opportunities for spouses of military personnel who are “serving in remote garrisons in Siberia, the Arctic, and the Far East.” Those spouses who are caring for chronically ill children “are also eligible for payments.” The article quotes a legal expert who suggests that applying for this benefit “will be quite easy to process,” although there may be difficulties for those in remote locations, where applicants may be forced “to travel 40-50 kilometers from their military township” to collect all the paperwork. Rather than paying the family member directly, the article points out that “the monetary payments will be made directly in the military units.”
Some have suggested that economic sanctions might induce the Kremlin leadership to pursue a less confrontational foreign policy and to limit the pace of military modernization. While funding for social programs (education, healthcare, infrastructure improvements) remains anemic, the Kremlin appears intent upon providing generous support to military and security forces, even to family members in remote locations. End OE Watch Commentary (Finch)
The Defense Ministry will start paying allowances to the unemployed spouses of officers and contract soldiers. In some military towns and garrisons they have no opportunity to find a job relating to their profession and they receive unemployed status. The allowances extend primarily to the wives and husbands of service personnel serving in remote garrisons in Siberia, the Arctic, and the Far East. Spouses caring for sick children are also eligible for payments. The sum of the allowance is equal to the minimum wage -- currently this is 9,489 rubles ($170) a month.
The Defense Ministry told Izvestiya that this department has developed a draft resolution “On the amount of and procedure for paying a monthly allowance to the spouses of servicemen -- citizens engaged in military service under contract -- while they are living with their spouses in areas where they cannot work in their special field.” The document is currently being agreed in the security departments.
The monetary payments will be made directly in the military units. The spouses of servicemen in garrisons where they cannot find work relating to their profession can claim the allowance. The wife or husband of an officer or contract soldier -- there are over 40,000 women contract service personnel serving in the country’s Armed Forces -- are eligible for the payments…
…To obtain these allowances the service personnel member will have to submit an application to their military unit together with a package of documents relating to their spouse. That includes their employment record book and copies of their marriage certificate and Russian passport with a note of registration at the place of service. A note from the local employment service testifying that the spouse is unemployed and not receiving allowances is also necessary.
The allowance will be quite easy to process, and all the necessary documents can be collected without red tape, Oleg Zherdev, a member of the Gvardiya Russian Association of Security Department Lawyers, believes.
“Difficulties may arise only when trying to obtain a note from a local employment service,” Oleg Zherdev told Izvestiya. “These services are in rayon centers. It is not out of the question that in some places in Siberia people will have to travel 40-50 kilometers from their military township to the ‘mainland’ to acquire this note.”…