Russian vets battle for benefits

"It's as if they're trying to kill us for a second time," says Maria Rokhlina, who fought at the battles of Kiev and Stalingrad. "This law is a humiliation for us."

Underlying the wave of opposition is a widespread belief that the measures are designed to grab resources away from the elderly and the poor, and hand them to the rich and powerful.

A poll conducted by the independent ROMIR public opinion agency last month found that just 36 percent of Russians approved the welfare reform, while 59 percent disapproved.

Zmirlov says he and his wife have been able to live comfortably on his well-above-average general's pension of 8,000 rubles (about $260) monthly. But he says the government's plan to take away all his non-cash benefits and give him 1,500 rubles ($50) in exchange will inflict real pain.

"We use public transport to get around the city, and go to our dacha [country cottage] in the summer, and that alone adds up to more than they're planning to give us," he says. "The system of benefits was working, and when they take it away a lot of people will be left without vital things that they need."

Critics also doubt that promises to index the new payments to inflation are likely to be honored. "Prices on things like transport, medicines, and telephone bills are growing much faster than the rate of inflation," says Oleg Shein, head of the Independent Trade Union Federation and a Duma deputy with the left-wing Rodina party. "These measures are guaranteed to hammer the living standards of the poorest and most vulnerable groups."

The government admits it stands to save billions of dollars through the cash substitution, and by passing on some other welfare obligations to regional authorities. But it insists the new system will be more reliable and conducive to economic growth.

"The fact is that the government's theoretical welfare obligations are twice as great as the resources available to pay them," says Nikolai Petrov, an expert with the Carnegie Center in Moscow. "Many of the benefits being cancelled were never actually delivered."

Zmirlov says that no economic calculus can adequately explain the rage felt by many war veterans as the Duma moves to strip away their traditional support system.

"We gave everything to this country; we suffered through war, reconstruction, and a lot more," he says. "So we take these privileges as our right, as the thanks of a grateful nation. If they take all that away from us and offer some small sum of money instead, well, we just cannot accept that on a moral level."

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