Providing for military personnel: for those involved in combat and those not on the front line

The payment system for military personnel is based on the official salary, supplemented by a salary for military rank and an allowance for length of service. These components have a significant impact on total monthly earnings, often amounting to 60-80% of base salary and providing benefits to those serving in the military for an extended period of time.

Other important components of remuneration are a service-related bonus (which is based on official salary + rank salary + length of service bonus) and a bonus, which is equal to or slightly greater than the official salary. At the same time, the system is designed in such a way that the monthly remuneration of a mobilized lieutenant and a senior lieutenant on a contract form of service, who occupy, for example, the same position - platoon commander and both are on the front line, can still differ very significantly, primarily due to the difference in length of service military service.

The figures are close to real, in hryvnias

Official salary: from 3 thousand (private) to 10 thousand (commander of a regiment, brigade).

Rank: from 400 (private) to 2 thousand (general).

Longevity bonus: (salary + rank) * 0.25 (1–5 years), 0.3 (5–10 years), 0.35 (11–15 years), 0.4 (15–20 years), 0.45 (20–25 years), 0.5 (over 25 years).

To these components are added other allowances (the main one is for special conditions of service, about 90% of the salary) and a bonus - from 400% of the salary.

Thus, the base rate is 20 thousand UAH/month. (private without combat) up to 30–50 thousand (officers in command positions or at headquarters, without combat).

The minimum amount of “combat” is 30 thousand UAH per month.

Up to 100 billion hryvnia monthly

During martial law, additional rewards are added to the monthly remuneration - those same infamous 30 thousand and 100 thousand UAH. Their size does not depend on position or rank; it is tied to participation in combat missions.

New policies continually reduce rewards for those in a combat zone but do not have direct contact with the enemy, and eliminate rewards entirely for those outside an active combat zone. The reason for the constant changes in the policy of the Ministry of Defense is obvious - amounts approaching UAH 100 billion are spent monthly on monetary support for military personnel.

Unfortunately, the current system, when “combat” pay for some military personnel exceeds the usual monthly basic payment several times, while other categories of military personnel have their payments cut from time to time, not only demonstrates some disdain for such military personnel, seemingly classifying them as secondary. This also leads to increased disappointment among such categories and a decrease in motivation to continue serving. So the problem of determining those who are “fighting” and those who are “not” is very difficult.

Who should pay the "fight"?

According to combat regulations, the unit's headquarters must move to a command post near the combat zone to control and support the units. That is, all headquarters services (personnel, finance, lawyers, combat training, etc.) are also located in small front-line settlements, like the rest.

At the same time, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine issued clarifications in accordance with which it is determined who takes part in hostilities or provides them. According to these clarifications, a number of services are in limbo. That is, they are not considered to support the work of units, although in fact they are located close to the front, a maximum of 30–40 km, and are also at increased risk to life.

Thus, a situation arises when two servicemen serve in the same premises in a front-line city, but one receives 30 thousand UAH “combat”, and the other does not receive it.

However, according to the Ministry of Education, for such “rear rats” life in a front-line city is equivalent to life in Pechersk, while prices there are astronomical for everything due to high demand and low supply. In addition, service in front-line cities differs from service in administrative bodies in Lviv and Kyiv, where at 17:50 military personnel are already at a low start to go home, while command posts work around the clock, and the working day lasts far from 40 hours per week - from 8 am to 10 pm.

That is, a situation arises in which one staff member serves in his hometown, goes home every evening for 30 thousand UAH of the base salary; and another staff member lives, for example, in Konstantinovka or Slavyansk in a room that he rents together. Although it is believed that both of them are in the same conditions of service and both do not need additional payments.

At a distance of 10 kilometers or more

The fact is that a serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has no choice; he follows the orders of the command. And it cannot be said that at a distance of ten or more kilometers from the front line he no longer “takes direct part in the hostilities.” Anything that flies there can reach him, including lancets, MLRS or even modified S-300s.

In addition, the fate of those who fight on the front line largely depends on the “rear rats” of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Examples of military personnel who are not constantly on the front line, but the life of the front line depends on their work, can be listed endlessly - from engineering and sapper units, which must prepare a system of trenches and dugouts for reserve positions, to drivers of rear units, who carry everything to the front line - from ammunition to food.

Even moral-psychological support or financial service officers from time to time visit company command and observation posts to carry out the rituals of official investigations invented by the Ministry of Defense. In turn, soldiers who hold and advance the front line on the front line have the right to expect that food and ammunition will be delivered to them in a timely manner, and that vacation reports will not be signed for three months.

Therefore, in order to find a way to fairly distribute remuneration among military personnel with limited financial resources, the Ministry of Defense should review the monetary support system as a whole.

The second year of a full-scale war is coming to an end, and only four changes have been made to the MOU order regulating the payment of cash support, three of which are cosmetic, and one supplements the order with the 34th section, which should regulate all the features of payments during martial law.

By comparison, the U.S. Army also offers service members a multifaceted system of pay, benefits and compensation, but with some key differences. For example, the percentage increase in the basic pay component (in the US Army, it is tied to rank, not position) for each rank of warrant officers and officers varies over the years of service in such a way that the most significant increase usually occurs in the first years of service , to the point that after reaching a certain length of service, it stabilizes without further growth.

For soldiers and non-commissioned officers, base pay either remains the same throughout their career or increases over the first few years, with the most increases prior to the 6-year tenure.

Special rewards also exist, for example, directly related to the performance of combat missions: payment for enemy fire, payment for imminent danger, for completing unusual and lengthy tasks...

However, no increase exceeds several times the base rate. The allowances themselves are not very different for those who take direct part in combat operations and for those who support front-line units. They are more aimed at helping with what military personnel who do not live a normal life in their garrisons really suffer from - difficult conditions of service in the field, long periods of rotation, continuation of service, etc.

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The Ministry of Defense could, based on the practice of armies that took part in conflicts, develop a new procedure for the payment of monetary support during martial law, at least with a temporary status. At the same time, one should be pragmatically optimistic in setting the amount of payments, because few people are talking about the unrealistic nature of the payment determined by the state - 15 million UAH to all families of the victims. Although you shouldn’t go to the other extreme - loss of motivation due to ultra-low monetary support will have catastrophic consequences.