Moscow is offering financial benefits to its occupying forces in Ukraine. Soldiers and civil servants stationed in the country are exempt from income tax. The occupiers can also receive "rewards and gifts" completely legally, the Kremlin explains.
According to the Kremlin, Russian soldiers and civil servants stationed in Ukraine will in future be exempt from income tax. The regulation affects "those who work in the (four) areas," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Friday, referring to the four Ukrainian areas of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia claimed by Russia as annexed. He referred to an exception in an anti-corruption law that the government published on Thursday.
According to President Vladimir Putin's decree, soldiers, police officers, members of the security services and other government officials who serve in the four regions no longer have to provide information on "their income, expenses and assets".
The decree also gives them the right to receive "rewards and gifts" if they are "humanitarian in nature" and received as part of the military operation in Ukraine. The measure also applies to "spouse and minor children", retrospectively from February 24 - the beginning of the offensive in Ukraine.
The new rule is part of the incentives the Kremlin wants to use to get Russians to go to Ukraine to fight: promises of big bonuses, perks on banking and real estate transactions, and financial support for families in the event of death or injury a relative. In Russia, members of the army and civil servants are regularly convicted in corruption cases involving the embezzlement of large sums of money.
