Putin orders urgent increase in military retirement pay

At a Wednesday conference with cabinet members, Putin said that the indexation of military pensions, scheduled in the 2018 budget for February, should be made as soon as possible – ideally, on January 1, simultaneously with the planned increase in active military salaries.

“We should do it like we were doing it in previous years and on January 1 index the pensions of military pensioners and similar categories of people – the police, national guard, firefighters, and the rest. But in order to do this, we must allocate the necessary money in the course of this year,” the president said. He estimated that the total number of military pensioners who can count on an increase is about 2.6 million. Putin noted that the Russian budget has enough money for the early increase, and Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov confirmed this.

This is not the first time the president has personally defended the interests of the retired military. In November of last year, he asked the government to change a draft law on single compensation awarded to clients of the State Pension Fund so that it included military pensioners and similar categories of citizens.

According to the draft budget for 2018-2020, overall spending on pensions in 2018 will be 3.07 trillion rubles ($53 billion).