Photo from UNIAN
Pensioners in the occupied territory also receive financial support from the Russian budget.
Ukraine has paid about UAH 80 billion, or nearly US$3 billion, in pensions to residents in Russian-occupied Donbas in the four years of hostilities.
"Ukraine paid pensions to citizens who reside in that territory and this is UAH79 billion – UAH 80 billion, which is $3 billion, according to an update received three days ago. This is how Ukraine conducts dialogue with its citizens in the occupied territories," Ukraine's envoy to the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) on the settlement of the Donbas crisis in Minsk Yevhen Marchuk said when commenting on the agenda of recent TCG meetings.
At the same time, Marchuk noted that the money is not transferred to the Russian-occupied districts.
"The only thing, of course, is that [pension payments] are not transferred to the terrorists there – the lessons have been learned," he said.
Read alsoDonetsk plant plundered, equipment siphoned to Russia
Ukrainian pensioners residing in occupied Donbas visit Ukrainian-controlled territory once a month to pick up their pensions. According to Ukraine's Obozrevatel portal, Ukrainian-controlled Donetsk Regional Military and Civil Administration estimated as of April 2018 that at least 100,000 pensioners crossed the contact line in Donetsk region alone.
Pensioners in the occupied territory also receive financial support from the Russian budget. In October 2016, de-facto authorities of the so-called "Donetsk People's Republic" ("DPR") said they paid pensions to about 420,000 people. In 2018, some 673,000 residents in "DPR"-controlled districts were paid pensions by the occupying authorities. According to the Ukrainian news outlet Novosti Donbasa, the total sum of pensions paid was 38.5 billion Russian rubles, or UAH 16.3 billion (US$604 million).
There is no information about the other self-proclaimed "Luhansk People's Republic" ("LPR").
As of 2014, there were 1.2 million pensioners in Russian-occupied Donbas, their annual payments from the Ukrainian budget were estimated at UAH 30 billion, or US$1.1 billion. Early in 2017, their number declined to 1 million pensioners who were paid pensions from the Ukrainian budget.
The key currency used in the occupied areas in Donbas is the Russian ruble.
As UNIAN reported, four working groups (political, economic, humanitarian and security issues) met as part of the TCG talks in Minsk on February 17.