Ukraine will replace the concept of "disability" with the "assessment of loss of functionality" starting from 2025, according to Ukrainian Minister of Health Viktor Lyashko, as quoted by the country’s media.
Per Lyashko, Ukrainians are seeking "disability" benefits instead of restoring their productivity. He argued that this approach is a relic of the post-Soviet era that Ukraine should discard.
The Ukrainian government plans to carry out a global reform of the Medical Expert Commission (MSEC) system in 2025 and completely reconsider approaches to disability assessment, according to the minister.
Lyashko explained that people with injuries will undergo rehabilitation, and after that they will be redirected to specialists who will consider how to restore their functionality. Per the Ukrainian media, during the 10 months of the conflict in 2022, over 45,000 Ukrainians received disability status, which is 3.5 times more than in 2021.
"This means that the Kiev regime is cutting back all social programs under the plausible pretext that it is a Soviet relic," Alexey Leonkov, military analyst and editor of the Arsenal Otechestva (Arsenal of the Fatherland) magazine, told Sputnik. "The fact is that there are a large number of disabled people who became disabled on the contact line after participating in hostilities in Ukraine. And it’s clear that they need to be paid money, apply for benefits, and so on. This is a burden on the budget – the same budget that is completely dependent on financial assistance from the United States and its NATO allies."
21 September 2023, 16:11 GMT
"In order to reduce costs, they would say: 'You don’t have legs, but you have arms. That means you are not disabled, you can work with your hands, go work as an accountant. You don't have arms, but you have legs, go work as a postman. If you don’t have legs, you have arms, you will sit at a computer, working as an operator.' As a result of this, all disability payments will be reduced sharply, as well as all social benefits. That is, they will differ from ordinary people only in the actual degree of their disability," Leonkov explained.
However, the question is whether Ukraine will simultaneously adopt laws protecting the rights of those disabled employees, according to the military expert. What if Ukrainian companies refuse to employ those people? That would mean that disabled persons would be left without any means to survive, given that the Ukrainian government is going to shrug off this responsibility.
Per Leonkov, the country is likely to face unemployment and bankruptcy in the future, given that its national debt is approaching the value of its gross domestic product (GDP). That is, Ukraine will adopt strict austerity measures, minimize social programs, and raise the bar for receiving any kind of financial assistance.
Kiev Mobilizing Old, Young and Sick
Remarkably, in late August, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ordered a full review of all mobilization exemptions granted by Military Medical Commissions (MMCs) under the pretext that some draft-age Ukrainians had bribed officials to get fraudulent "disability" rulings from MMCs. The initiative was announced in the wake of the spectacular failure of the Ukraine counteroffensive. Instead of gaining ground on the battlefield, the Ukrainian Armed Forces sustained gargantuan losses in terms of both manpower and equipment.
Still, Kiev's Western patrons are urging Ukrainians to continue fighting nonetheless. As former British Secretary of Defense Ben Wallace claimed in his recent op-ed, Ukraine should expand mobilization and send its youth to the battlefield because any pause will allow Russia "to build a new army."
Since February 2022, Ukrainian martial law has barred most men between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving the country; however, tens of thousands of draft-age adults have fled to Europe since then. The Kiev regime is urging the EU to extradite those "draft-dodgers," but European authorities refuse to do this under the pretext of the bloc's laws, since Ukrainian migrants are a source of cheap labor.
"Ukraine's mobilization reserve has been almost exhausted," Leonkov said. "About 40% remains, if we are talking about general mobilization. If we are talking about those among the mobilized who are capable [of fighting], then the figure is even smaller. Given that they continuously throw these mobilized people into 'cannon fodder' assaults, during which half of the personnel die, they cannot compensate for these losses. Instead of changing tactics and moving on from the offensive to some other tactic, they continue to attack."
"Of course, they suffer significant losses there. And, of course, it is impossible for them to make up for these losses. They need to keep a certain number on the line of combat contact in order to hold this line. But they believe that the best defense is attack. So, in fact, they are being pushed into slaughter. They do not have time for training people properly and professionally, and there are not enough people. That’s why, previously, they used to take healthy people, but now they take all the 'lame and cross-eyed' ones."
To complicate matters further, the Kiev regime's strategy of preserving Western military equipment and not caring about its soldiers has resulted in spiking rates of amputation. According to the Western press, between 20,000 and 50,000 Ukrainian military personnel have lost one or more limbs since the beginning of the special military operation. While Ukrainian medical institutions cite 20,000 amputee cases, the actual figure could be much higher, foreign journalists note, adding that the exact number of fallen and injured is shrouded in secrecy by Kiev.
The Ukrainian Healthcare system is overwhelmed, according Tetiana Ostashchenko, commander of the Medical Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, while the cost of getting a new artificial limb mounts over $100,000.
In order to save their lives and limbs, newly mobilized Ukrainian soldiers are increasingly surrendering on the battlefield. Russian leaflets provide them a life-saving exit from the "meat grinder" created by Kiev and the West's determination to fight to the last Ukrainian.