The year of 2023 became not only a period of gaining resilience, which Russia demonstrated in response to external challenges in the financial, economic and sociopolitical spheres, but also a time of active search and implementation of new strategies that allow the country to adapt to the dynamically changing rules of the game in the international arena and discover new leadership opportunities. And a key role in these changes has played the civil society.
1.2Integration of the new regions into the all-Russian legal and civil space
The last day of September 2023 marks a year since the President of Russia has signed an agreement on the accession of four new regions to the Russian Federation — the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions. A year later this event remains for many Russians one of the most significant in the modern history of Russia.3
To ensure equal social and economic guarantees for the population, the President of Russia set the task of integrating the new regions into a single economic, legal, educational and cultural space of our country, noting the need to bring them to the all-Russian level in the next eight years. The head of state signed relevant federal laws in the fields of education, science, healthcare, social protection, sports, and the integration of the new regions into the judicial system of the Russian Federation.
During the spring session the State Duma of the Russian Federation enacted 54 laws, aimed at integrating the new regions into the Russian legal framework.4 This work was continued in the autumn session of 2023.5
In the next 2.5 years the federal authorities plan to allocate ~ 2 trillion rubles6
Throughout 2023, with the coordination of responsible ministries and departments, an integrated work was launched to ensure security, restoration and socioeconomic development of the new territories.
The integrated program for the socioeconomic development of the new regions, approved by the Russian Government in April 2023, encompasses ~ 300 priority activities, aimed at restoring and repairing infrastructure, providing citizens with comfortable housing and necessary social facilities. The program is designed for 2023–2025 with targets until 2030.7
Restoration works in the DPR, LPR, Kherson, and Zaporozhye regions are implemented by 33 companies ~ 50 ths. builders
Russian civil society made a significant contribution to the process of integration of the new regions into the all-Russian socioeconomic and cultural space in 2023. Along with other institutions the Civic Chamber focused its efforts on helping to implement civil initiatives in the new regions.
The process of forming civic chambers in the new regions of the Russian Federation was completed in 2023.8.1, 8.2 In accordance with the legislative developments of 2022, in July 2023 representatives of the LPR, DPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions entered the new VIII composition of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation.9 Thus civil society institutions in the new regions received an effective tool for representation and interaction with government authorities at all levels.
To facilitate the integration of civil society institutions of the new regions of the Russian Federation into the political, social and economic systems of the country, in July 2023 the Coordination Council on the new regions’ integration was instituted in the Civic Chamber, uniting members of the Civic Chamber and opinion leaders of the new regions.10
Directions of the Coordination Council under the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation for the integration of the new regions of the Russian Federation (given in abbreviated form):11
- Coordinating the work of members of the Civic Chamber with the new regions of the Russian Federation;
- Providing information, methodological and other support to civic chambers of the new regions of the Russian Federation;
- Expertizing draft law developed for the new regions of the Russian Federation;
- Supporting the nonprofit sector in the new regions of the Russian Federation. Assistance in organizing the effective work of public associations, including the development of federal public projects;
- Promoting the formation of communities in the field of activities of socially oriented NPOs and civil activists;
- Assistance in the implementation of projects of the Civic Chamber aimed at helping the new regions and their residents;
- Coordinating the work to implement public monitoring of compliance with the electoral rights of citizens in the new regions;
- Assistance in working with the SMO participants, veterans, internal refugees, orphans and disabled people, and representatives of other socially vulnerable categories of the population;
- Organizing work to attract representatives of other regions with the experience in public activities, civic chambers of chief regions to work with the new regions of the Russian Federation;
- Conducting training events for representatives of socially oriented NPOs and civil activists, including members of civic chambers of the new regions of the Russian Federation;
- Facilitating the participation of representatives of socially oriented NPOs and civil activists from the new regions in forums and other socially significant events; and
- Coordinating the reporting on the state of civil society institutions in the new regions of the Russian Federation.
In the fall of 2022, when representatives of the LPR were able to participate in the competition of the Presidential Grants Foundation, only three organizations applied for participation.
For the next competition of the Presidential Grants Foundation in March 2023, organizations from the LPR have already sent 21 applications12
The close date for applications for the 17th foundation competition was October 16, 2023.
47 projects of nonprofit organizations from the new regions of Russia submitted to participate in the competition13
The winners of the
competition will be
determined in January
2024.
In 2023 the implementation of the project “Support for Public Initiatives in the New Territories of Russia”, initiated in 2022, continued. This project ensures the work of created in the Lugansk and Donetsk people’s republics and Zaporozhye region resource centers for supporting public initiatives.14 Thanks to the work of resource centers, the activity of nonprof it organizations in the new regions in 2023 has increased significantly.
The Civic Chamber pays increased attention to working with citizens’ appeals living in the new regions, which allows the voice of each resident to be heard and, if necessary, to resolve such appeal privately.15
Today, the process of integrating the new regions into the Russian legal and civil space is in full swing. Representatives of government, business and civil society will have to jointly solve a number of problems in the near future, including those related to making decisions to compensate citizens for the loss of property due to shelling, providing housing for military personnel, eliminating excessive red tape of many administrative procedures, preventing the outflow of young people from the new regions, and assistance and support for socially vulnerable categories of citizens and many others.16
1.3Support of the SMO participants and veterans and their families
At the beginning of 2023, following a meeting with the mothers of military personnel who participated in the special military operation that took place in November 2022,17 the President of Russia approved a list of instructions, outlining the priority of supporting participants and veterans of combat operations and members of their families, as part of the implementation of state social policy in 2023.18
The topic of supporting participants in the special military operation, as well as members of their families, became one of the priority directions of the State Duma during the spring session of 2023.
More than 70 laws were enacted to build a unified system of targeted assistance to military personnel.
The laws enacted by the State Duma, in particular, allow:
- All participants of the SMO and Donbass militias to receive the status of combat veterans;
- Military pensioners who returned to service, regardless of their position, to retain an increased pension;
- Widows of combat veterans to receive state support regardless of the composition of the family in which they live;
- Family members of military personnel to continue to use service housing;
- To retain the right to compensation for rent in case of renting housing at the previous place of service;
- To assign a separate quota within government-funded places at universities based on the results of entrance examinations for the SMO participants;
- To admit children of the SMO participants out of turn to schools and nurseries;
- To authorize commanders and heads of hospitals to certify signatures of military personnel, if personal presence cannot be ensured when registering births, marriages and their dissolution;
- To enjoy the right to free consultation with lawyers on a number of significant matters;
- To exempt the SMO participants, as well as members of their families, from paying personal income tax, a number of duties and penalties; and
- To undergo vocational training and training under vocational retraining programs for disabled combatants.
At the beginning of April 2023, the President of Russia, in order to create conditions that ensure a decent life and active work for participants in the special military operation and members of their families, signed the Executive Order On Establishing “Defenders of the Fatherland State Fund” to Support Participants in the Special Military Operation.19 From June 1, 2023, the fund began its work in 16 directions.
Defenders of the Fatherland State Fund
In the first months of the SMO, the fund received more than 90 thousand requests from military personnel. As of October 2023, 89 branches of the fund received more than 340 ths. requests,of which more than 220 thousand were requests from active military personnel and members of their families.
In September 2023, the fund received a grant in the amount of 5 billion rubles
The funds will be used to fulfill the tasks assigned to the fund, the main one of which is integrated support for veterans of the special military operation and family members of fallen soldiers.
16 key directions of the “Defenders of the Fatherland State Fund”
Medical rehabilitation
Providing technical means of rehabilitation
Reissuance and preparation of documents
Psychological and psychotherapeutic assistance
Organization of long-term care system
Patriotic education of the population
Hospitalization
Social adaptation and resocialization
Commemorating the memory of the SMO veterans
Sports, Paralympic Movement, cultural and leisure activities
Palliative care
Legal assistance
Historical and cultural education
Health resort treatment
Social support
Integration of the SMO veterans into the system of patriotic education of Russian citizens
One of the urgent problems, that caused public outcry in the first half of 2023, were the inequality of payments and preferential benefits for the SMO participants and their families in different regions of Russia. A significant number of additional support measures implemented in the regions of the Russian Federation directly depended on their financial capabilities. To level out this situation, the Working Group on the SMO issues, supervised by Andrei Turchak and created by the Executive Order of the President of Russia,20 developed a Unified standard of regional measures to support the special military operation participants and their families, including 20 areas of mandatory assistance. The President of Russia supported the implementation of the developed unified standard in the regions.
Unified standard: 20 measures to support the SMO participants and their family members
- To suspend the fulfillment of obligations of the SMO participants under agreements on the provision of subsidies (grants) from the budgets of regions of Russia for the period of participation in the special military operation, as well as to extend their period to continue fulfilling obligations after demobilization.
- To ensure the safety of vehicles of the SMO participants free of charge.
- To provide the SMO participants with benefits for paying transport tax per vehicle.
- To maintain (renew) the status of a large family and the right to social support measures associated with this status in the event of the death of one or more children participating in the SMO.
- To freeze (renew) the right of citizens with three or more children on free land in the event of the death of one or more children participating in the SMO.
- To compensate the families of the SMO participants for part of the costs of housing and utilities, as well as part of the fee for major overhaul.
- To include the SMO participants and members of their families in the number of preferential categories entitled to a subsidy for the purchase of gas equipment and work on their land plots in the amount of at least 100 thousand rubles per household.
- To ensure free social services at home, in a stationary or semi-stationary form, to disabled spouses and parents of the SMO participants recognized as in need of social services.
- To ensure free psychological assistance to family members of the SMO participants (spouses, children, parents), including in the event of their death.
- To ensure preferential hot meals to children of the SMO participants studying in grades 5–11, as well as full-time students
- To exempt from fees charged to parents for the supervision and care of children of the SMO participants in nurseries (including in the event of death of the SMO participants).
- To ensure the enrollment of children of the SMO participants in extended day groups and 24-hour stay in nurseries on a priority (preferential) basis (including in the event of death of the SMO participants)
- To ensure the preferential right of the SMO participants to transfer their children to other nurseries closest to the family’s place of residence (including in the event of death of the SMO participants).
- To exempt from fees for supervision and care of children of the SMO participants in extended day groups in educational institutions (including in the event of death of the SMO participants).
- To ensure the priority enrollment in extended day groups for children of the SMO participants studying in grades 1–6 (including in the event of death of the SMO participants).
- To ensure the preferential right of families of the SMO participants to transfer their children to the educational organizations closest to their place of residence (including in the event of death of the SMO participants).
- To ensure free children classes in clubs and sections for families of the SMO participants (including in the event of death of the SMO participants).
- To ensure a priority enrollment in sports groups (sections) for children of the SMO participants in regional and municipal sports training organizations and the provision of sports equipment, apparels and items free of charge (including in the event of death of the SMO participants).
- To ensure travel warrants at discount prices to children’s health camps and health resorts for children of the SMO participants (including in the event of death of the SMO participants).
- To ensure preferential visits to regional and municipal cultural institutions and entertainment events for the SMO participants and members of their families (spouses, children, parents) (including in the event of death of the SMO participants).
Source: The Parliamentary Newspaper // A unified standard of support measures has been developed for the SMO participants and their families
Monitoring the implementation of support measures proposed in the unified standard is entrusted to the Working Group on the SMO matters, which included the Hero of Russia, First Vice President of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, Vyacheslav Bocharov. The group will carry out this task jointly with the “Defenders of the Fatherland State Fund” and the coordination center of the Government of the Russian Federation.
An important step in simplifying the procedure for providing social support measures to the SMO participants was the decision of the Russian Government on the nonapplication procedure for obtaining a combat veteran’s certificate and providing appropriate payments. All necessary information is received by the Social Fund of Russia from the ministries and departments, that issued veteran’s certificates, starting in 2023.21
On June 24, 2023, the President of Russia signed a law that enables the SMO participants and their children to enter universities in budget-funded places within a separate quota. And those who are already studying on a paid basis, according to the law, can switch to budget-funded places as a priority.
More than 9 ths. of the SMO fighters and members of their families matriculated under the quota of the SMO participants in 2023,22 of whom 1,200 were the SMO participants and 8,200 members of their families.220 of the SMO participants and their children were enrolled to preparatory departments of universities at the expense of budgetary allocations.
The most popular areas were the following: medical science, pedag