Ukraine War Day #457: Social Benefits For SMO Families

Dear Readers:

Today I have this piece, the reporter is Rafael Fakhrutdinov. One of the key responsibilities of any government is to take care of its military veterans and their families. It is part of the core social contract between a people and its government.

Starting this June 1, filials of the Fund called “Defenders of the Fatherland” are set to open in all Russian regions. These funds will provide assistance to Special Military Operation (SMO) participants and their families. In the form of social, legal, psychological, and other types of assistance. Other, already existing, social-service agencies are to work out a close collaboration with the Fund to make sure that the veterans get every service that they are entitled to.

This initiative was declared on May 19 by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. [yalensis: Mishustin has a good reputation and a good track record. He was maybe the only person in the world who could have simplified and automated the Russian tax system the way he did.]

Last week a 3-day seminar was conducted in Moscow which brought together the leaders of the regional filials, so that they could work out all the kinks and launch the new system.

Anna Tsivileva

The Chairperson of the Fund is Anna Tsivileva, who told the reporter that all possible forms of assistance will be provided to the SMO veterans: Medical, Social, Psychological Rehab, Palliative Care, healing resorts and spas, long-term leave of absence [from work], pharmacy meds, prosthetics, household adaptations needed [for wheelchairs, for example], retraining and physical rehab, help in finding work, etc.

The key thing is to set up a single point of entry and to avoid bureaucratic red tape. [yalensis: Once again, Mishustin has proven his mettle in this arena, when he simplified and computerized the Russian tax system. The last thing that traumatized veterans need is to be wandering around through a Kafkaesque maze of bureaucracy… You desperately need something. One number: Pick up the phone and call it. Or one website: Just Logon, and bingo, you’re there. That’s how it should be. As simple as ordering a set of dishes from amazon.]

According to Sergei Kirilenko, who works for the Administration of the President, the Fund will be focused on helping veterans return to ordinary life. To this end, a system will be set up almost like a concierge assistance: “Every veteran and every family of a warrior who perished, will be provided with Social Coordinators, who will accompany them personally.”

Since the filials are to start their work on June 1, there is not much time to get everything ready. Kirilenko personally inspected the Kemerovo filial on Tuesday 16 May. “Most of the regions have the buildings in place, and the leaders of the various filials have all been trained in their functions. By the end of the year we will have a cadre of 11,000 Social Coordinators who have passed through the training.” [yalensis: You will see, in the narratives below, that this Social Coordinator training appears to be something like a very accelerated course in social work or case management.]

Anna Tsivileva again, who works out of the Kemerovo filial in the Kuzbass region of the Russian heartland, in Western Siberia. A vast coal-mining region. “The Kuzbass filial won’t just be a place where SMO veterans can receive help and support. For them it will become a second home. A place where they can meet and relax and chat with each other. Such socializing activities will help these Defenders of the Fatherland with their return to normal life.”

The Role Of the Coordinators

Tatiana Isaeva is the Director of a Social Services organization which assists families and children in the city of Polysaevo in the Kemerovo Oblast. This is what she told the reporter: “After the start of the partial mobilization, my husband received a draft notice, although he was never in the military. Working together, our entire family put together a kit for him and accompanied him to the mobilization point. Neither he, nor any of us, had any doubt whether he should participate in the SMO. In the end, however, he failed the physical, and so he came home. But my son is serving in the SMO, in his case as a volunteer. He told me: If everybody runs away and hides, then we will lose our Motherland. These words of my son are what inspired me to go and work as a Social Coordinator for the Fund. My son is defending our Motherland at the front, and we here, in the rear, are helping the defenders and their families.”

A team of Social Workers

Tatiana shares her apprehensions: “Of course, it took me a long time to adjust to the fact that my son took such a decision. But my husband and I, along with our daughter, working together, were able to cope. And just from this, from my own experience, I realized how hard it is for the other mothers, the families of the SMO participants. Some of them are completely unable to cope with what is happening. And this is also one reason why I decided to become a Social Coordinator. I understood that this is my duty. To help other people who are in a similar situation.

“Not long ago we completed a 4-day training course in Novosibirsk. They taught us, for example, how to work with veterans returning from the front, and how to work with their families. In essence, this was an accelerated course in learning all about government agencies, who does what. The main theme of our work is the word operationality [оперативность]. We are supposed to, ideally, know the quickest way to solve a person’s problem.”

[yalensis: I like this approach. A compassionate heart is a good thing, but efficiency and results are even better!]

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin: A technocratic hero of our time.

Tatiana continues: “We also had to undergo psychological training. Everything is important down to the last detail, such as the physical distance maintained between oneself and the client. We were told that it is not appropriate to just break down and cry with the person. We must make them understand that we are there to solve their problem. The SMO participants and their families need to know that they can count on us. Starting in June, the categories of people that we will be working with, are those warriors who are returning into the reserve; and the families of those who perished on the battlefield. Later the list of categories will expand, no doubt.

“We also had some paralegal training. We were taught about the roots and pre-history of this conflict. You know that, up until February of last year, the majority of the Russian people simply lived their own lives, with their own problems, only vaguely understanding what was going on in the world, beyond the borders of our own country. History is cyclical, and our country has never been left in peace, neither in this century, nor 3 centuries ago. This is why the current participants in the SMO are busy forging a new history of Russia.”

A Cossack’s Story

Next the reporter interviewed a man named Mikhail Myalitsin, who served in the SMO between November 2022 and April 2023: “My relatives and fellow townspeople went off to serve in the SMO of their own volition. Among them were some who had never held a weapon. Such a man needed a more experienced mentor. And I had served for 10 years as a communications specialist in a Strategic Rocket Forces Division, and then for 10 years in the Ministry of Internal Affairs [i.e., as a policeman]. How was I supposed to stand off to the side? This military specialty suited me very well.”

Myalitsin currently works as one of the Social Coordinators of the Fund, and lives in the town of Zvezdny, in the Perm region. “After I returned from the front, they approached me and asked me to become a Social Coordinator. One of the criterions for selection is the public persona of a given individual, his reputation and authority within his own town or city.

Cossack Mikhail Myalitsin

“For many years I had my courage tested, as I participated in administrative affairs, collected and transported humanitarian goods to the people in the Donbass. Coming from a line of Cossacks, we held many family gatherings out in the field, in which we tested our skills and manhood. We would play war games that were as close as possible to real conditions, we learned to shoot, we trained in tactics, mountain climbing, knife fights, saber fights, and so on. Some people learned survival tactics like spear-fishing, you never know what skills you are going to need in the SMO.

“In the end I agreed to work with the Fund. I successfully passed the test, after returning from a 4-day intensive training class in Kazan. We learned how to help SMO participants when they have questions about prostheses, and how to get the medications they need. But the biggest need, as I see it, will be applying for government entitlements. You know that people are unfamiliar with all the bureaucratic red tape. And some of them are in a depressive state where they simply cannot deal with practical issues like putting together their documents.

“When it comes to the desire to help people — there are no questions whatsoever. Even our babushkas, our industrious workers of the rear, are knitting stockings for the soldiers. But it is not so easy to satisfy all the technical needs of the SMO soldiers. Drones, collimator sights, heat sensors, light-weight armored jackets with kevlar plates — those things are not so easy to purchase. And not all of this equipment is even necessarily produced in Russia. Which creates additional complications: How do we order this equipment, how do we bring it in. But I am certain that we will resolve these issues.”