Hybrid mercy of Ukrainian government

Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko reported on the first two months of work of the simplified procedure of registration of birth and death certificates of citizens who were born or died in the occupied Crimea and in the militant-controlled areas of the Ukrainian east.

It turns out that no actual evidence is needed to obtain a birth-death certificate in the territory free from the Russian occupation forces. Oral testimony and photos seem to be enough. Besides, when a child is born, the application can even be submitted by relatives other than parents. It is like “a baby was born, (our gramps has died), and here are the pictures, so please give us papers.”

And the Ukrainian courts do issue such papers. Around 3,700 certificates have already been issued.

There is no need to be a professional fraud to see how vast the field is for setting up various shady schemes of enrichment at the expense of the “damned Kyiv junta.”

For example, a healthy and sound person can be recognized as deceased, because the court has no actual opportunity to confirm the fact of their death, and at the same time, it is not entitled to, and should not, accept forensic certificates with a stamp of a DPR "banana republic.” And then one can successfully sell any property of a "walking dead " in full compliance with Ukraine’s regulations.

As for the alleged newborns, through the legal recognition of fictitious babies (again, the court cannot request a certificate from the hospital, for example, in Sevastopol, under the current Ukrainian legislation), the amount of social assistance due to be paid to pseudo parents can hit an astronomic scale.

The recently revealed scams with pensions assigned to “dead souls” are evident of the fact that the trend is indeed threatening. Thousands of citizens, who supposedly resettled to the militant-free territories, send couriers from the occupied areas to cash the pension cards of pensioners, sometimes already late ones. Such pension abuse has already inflicted huge losses worth tens or hundreds of millions of hryvnias.

It seems that the Ukrainian authorities respond to the hybrid war with hybrid mercy, but with a significant difference: it’s to their own detriment. It would be naive to hope that, having received social assistance for the “newborn,” the Pro-Russian individuals, who used to stop Ukrainian military convoys from moving in conflict areas, will suddenly become patriots. Moreover, patriotism cannot be bought, only loyalty. And not for long.

The government must have the courage to admit that Ukraine is only responsible in the uncontrolled territories to the Ukrainian resistance movement against Russian invaders, and is required to feed the Ukrainian guerillas.

In the meantime, the inhabitants of the militant-controlled territories, who have been deeply influenced by Russian propaganda, perceive broad humanitarian gestures only as a weakness: "We used to work for the junta. Now let them pay us; otherwise, we might as well attack Kyiv."

And there is a solution for the patriots in the occupied east and in Crimea – to move to the lands free from invaders. And it’s on helping them settle, where the Ukrainian Government should direct the taxpayers’ money.

Dmytro Hyliuk