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Thousands of internally displaced pensioners in Ukraine were unable to receive their payments in January because of a new double identification procedure, Ukraine’s Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets said on Telegram.
Lubinets urged the Cabinet of Ministers to urgently simplify the verification process for internally displaced pensioners and extend the deadlines for confirming that they are not receiving pensions from Russia.
According to the ombudsman, more than 1.3 million displaced pensioners are officially registered, and a significant number of them did not receive their pensions in January. At the beginning of the year, the Pension Fund of Ukraine was flooded with complaints about the sudden suspension of payments.
The problem arose after the introduction of additional identification requirements, under which pensioners had to confirm that they were not receiving payments from the aggressor state. To restore payments, people were required to log into the Pension Fund’s online portal and verify their status using an electronic signature via Diia.Signature (Diia ID). However, many elderly people do not use smartphones or lack digital skills.
As a result, pensioners were forced to visit Pension Fund offices in person, leading to long queues and disruptions to the work of the institutions.
Lubinets cited a personal example: his mother, who fled Volnovakha in Donetsk region due to Russian shelling and has official IDP status, had legally received her Ukrainian pension for years. In January, her payments were suspended solely because she failed to complete the new electronic verification.
“People were not warned and were not properly informed about what they needed to do. Payments were suspended not because of violations, but because of failed communication,” Lubinets said.
He stressed that thousands of pensioners learned about the new rules only after their money failed to arrive. According to him, the state shifted the burden of verification onto citizens without ensuring proper communication.
Lubinets called on the government to:
- extend verification deadlines for displaced pensioners;
- simplify the identification procedure;
- ensure clear and accessible communication;
- use existing state registers instead of introducing additional checks.
He emphasized that most elderly displaced persons do not have smartphones and do not use the Diia app, while pensions are often their only source of income.
“The state must guarantee this right and not make it dependent on complex digital procedures,” the ombudsman concluded.
