- Russia enacted a new decree on Wednesday that limits payouts for injured soldiers based on their wounds.
- Soldiers with less severe wounds now have their $30,000 payout knocked down to $10,000, or even $1,000.
- Previous foreign estimates found that Russia had to spend 6% of its budget on casualty payouts.
The Kremlin introduced new restrictions on Wednesday to medical payouts for Russia’s wounded troops, swiftly enacting a decree that allows only those with severe injuries to receive a promised $30,000.
Previously, Russia had pledged at the start of its war on Ukraine that those wounded in the fighting were to each be given a one-time payout of 3 million rubles, or about $30,000.
But Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s new instruction on Wednesday reduces that payout to $10,000 for less severe injuries and $1,000 for other cases.
The decree was approved by Russia’s prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, who leads the country’s parliament, and put into law at 4 p.m. on the same day.
By the Kremlin’s new guidelines, soldiers will only receive the full $30,000 if they suffer “Section I” injuries, or those that endanger their life or health or may cause significant damage to their organs.
These include severe spinal injuries, brain damage, rupturing of genitalia, rib fractures, broken limbs, or damage to organs such as the lungs or kidneys.
Less severe injuries that qualify a soldier for $10,000 are listed under “Section II.” These are deemed temporary wounds such as minor fractures, concussions, first- and second-degree burns to the eyes, ankle fractures, and gunshot wounds that don’t affect organs.
Russia still holds to a law signed by Putin in March 2022 that entitles those who die in the war to about 7.4 million rubles, or $75,000, as well as 5 million rubles, or $50,000, to their families.
Those wounded and deemed “unfit for duty” are also entitled to another 2.96 million rubles on top of their injury payout.
The new decision comes about a week after Russian media reported that authorities had been discussing revising injury compensation.
Anna Tsivileva, a Russian deputy defense minister, told reporters on November 5 that doctors and hospitals had said the payouts didn’t account for the severity of soldiers’ injuries.
Meanwhile, mounting casualties from Russia’s grinding advance in Ukraine’s east have likely ballooned the cost of the payouts to the wounded and the families of those killed. The UK estimated that as many as 1,500 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded on average for every day of October.
In July, two Western-based researchers estimated that Russia would have to spend about 2.3 trillion rubles, now worth about $23 billion, in payouts for the dead and wounded. That was about 6% of the country’s entire budget for 2024.
The Kremlin’s press service did not respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.
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