Kiev doesn’t pay pensions to Donbas residents — Donetsk Pension Fund

The Pension Fund of Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) has refuted Kiev’s statement on paying out pensions to residents of the Donbas region, the Donetsk news agency reports on Wednesday.

Shortly before, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk told the Italian La Repubblica newspaper that Kiev allegedly continued to pay pensions to Donbass residents, "in spite of not receiving taxes from the region".

"Yatsenyuk’s statements cannot be called otherwise than a lie," said Chairperson of the DPR Pension Fund Galina Sagaidakova. "Ukraine has not been paying pensions to our pensioners for 10 months. At the moment, the total debt amounts to dozens of billions of hryvnias."

Kiev officially stopped paying out pensions and social allowances to residents of the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk on December 1, 2014, imposing an economic blockade on Donbass but in fact, the payments stopped much earlier, in summer.