Russia wants to classify information about relatives of servicemen killed in Ukraine

The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation has decided to limit access to information about relatives of servicemen killed in Ukraine.

Source: Russian service of the BBC

Details: Since 2015, information about servicemen killed in the course of "special operations" has been a state secret, but benefits for family members are drawn up by civilian officials of district administrations.

Now the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation has requested that the government transfer this authority to military registration and enlistment offices, which will further limit information about servicemen killed in the war against Ukraine.

If a relative holds a certificate stating that they are "a family member of a veteran killed in combat" they are entitled to benefits under the Veterans Act; such benefits include increments to pensions, payment of housing and communal services and passes to health resorts.

At present, military registration and enlistment offices are responsible for allocating pensions and benefits only to disabled relatives of servicemen in connection with the loss of a breadwinner.

Since 2013, the following procedure has been in place for family members of servicemen killed in Chechnya, Syria and other hotspots: district administrations issue documents to  parents and spouses of the deceased who receive an ordinary pension or who are not pensioners, certifying that they are members of the deceased’s family.

However, for relatives of servicemen killed in the war in Ukraine, the Ministry of Defence is proposing the introduction of a special rule: relatives will have to obtain certificates from military registration and enlistment offices. This is made clear in the draft law published on the government’s legal information portal.

In the explanatory memorandum to the draft law of the Ministry of Defence, the Russian Federation points out that this is necessary "with a view to limiting the number of persons who have access to information about family members of servicemen of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation who perished (died) in the performance of tasks in the course of the special military operation in Ukraine, the Luhansk People’s Republic and the Donetsk People’s Republic.

The BBC sent a query to the Russian Ministry of Defence requesting it to comment on the published draft and to explain why the Ministry has proposed to authorise military commissariats to issue certificates to a member of a serviceman’s family. The BBC also requested clarification on how many certificates had already been issued.

In 2015, the Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree according to which information disclosing losses of personnel in wartime, and also "in peacetime during the conduct of special operations", is a state secret.

The Ministry of Defence has the authority to manage this information.

At the time, the Kremlin rejected speculations that there was a connection between the decree and the conflict in Ukraine.

A group of activists, human rights defenders and journalists tried, unsuccessfully, to appeal the decree in Russia’s Supreme Court. 

Russia began a full-scale war against Ukraine on 24 February. The last time the Russian Ministry of Defence reported on losses in Ukraine was on 25 March, when it announced that 1,351 servicemen had died.