Russian vets battle for benefits

Valentin Zmirlov commanded a Red Army tank-busting regiment through four harrowing years of World War II. He says he was happy to retire with the comprehensive, yet modest, benefits granted to a Soviet war veteran.

But today, Mr. Zmirlov is leading his downtown Moscow veterans' association into a different sort of battle. Russia's powerful war vets are at the head of a growing grass-roots challenge to President Vladimir Putin's plans to overhaul the country's Soviet-era pension and welfare systems.

"We were deceived," says the gray-haired retired general, who stands ramrod-straight, proudly displaying his war medals.

"Just a few months ago, we reelected the parliament and the president, and nobody said a word about abolishing our benefits. All the veterans I know are very angry about this."

A draft law, passed in first reading by the pro-Kremlin majority in the State Duma last Friday, would replace a bewildering array of benefits with simple cash payments. These services and subsidies are a key source of aid to some 40 million mostly elderly or disabled Russians.

Among the privileges to be cancelled are free public transport and telephone service, subsidized medicines and sanitarium treatments, state-provided wheelchairs and prosthetics, and a host of other Soviet-era benefits provided to millions of pensioners, veterans, disabled people, single mothers, and Arctic-dwellers.

Supporters of the law argue that the reform is a long overdue measure that will slash waste, target benefits where they are needed, and enable tax reductions.

"This reform is dictated by the logic of modernization," says Konstantin Simonov, director of the independent Center for Current Politics in Moscow. "It's another matter that the government is going about implementing in an inept way."

The Kremlin has ordered the Duma to postpone its summer recess in order to push the controversial, 600-page law through the required three readings by early August.

Reform proponents say the old system was a godsend for corrupt officials, who would charge the state for services to the needy they never delivered. Millions of rural pensioners lack any access to telephone service, public transport, or subsidized pharmacies, and thus are unable to enjoy the supposed privileges at all, they add.

"The goal of this law is to move from pure populism to actually implementing our obligations," to create a modern, market-driven economy in Russia, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin told the Duma.

Few observers anticipated the firestorm of opposition that began with demonstrations by thousands of angry pensioners at Russia's government headquarters last month. It has since escalated into threats by war veterans to abstain from next year's symbolically important celebrations of the 60th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany.

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