Close cooperation between veteran’s movement and international veterans’ organizations is of great importance for improvement of social, moral and legal protection of veterans – Volodymyr Rybak
13 February 2013, 13:10
The Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada met with the Chairman of the Committee for the affairs of soldiers-internationalists under the CIS Council of Heads of Government, Ruslan Aushev on Wednesday.
A number of issues regarding social, moral and legal assistance to veterans, in particular to soldiers-internationalists, were discussed.
Volodymyr Rybak noted that care for veterans is "a priority for every country, without exception". "We should not only remember and highly respect everything that was done for us, but also support these people in today's tough times," he said. "For me, personally, the Afghans and Chornobyl clean-up veterans are people who deserve great respect in society," said the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada.
The Chairman of the Parliament said that Ukraine has sufficiently powerful legal framework that regulates the issues of social protection for all veterans, both war and soldiers-internationalists. According to him, currently 1 million 715 thousand citizens of Ukraine have the status of a war veteran.
The Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada believes that the main issue is not the presence of appropriate laws, but real implementation of the norms of social and law protection that are behind them. Volodymyr Rybak deems also that the system of social protection requires improvements with consideration of international standards. He believes that experience of other countries, in particular the CIS member-countries, should be also taken into consideration while dealing with this important issue.
Volodymyr Rybak stressed the importance of the role of NGOs in solving problems of veterans. “It is good to have a mission or a committee, where you can request for an advice or assistance,” he said and added that “the NGOs should be active after wide discussion of veteran problems with former fighters”.
The Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada stressed that joint efforts of all countries in solving the issues of assisting veterans and their families as well as close interaction with them, is extremely important for the work each country does to protect veterans. "Close cooperation between veteran movement and international veterans’ organizations is of great importance for further work aiming at improving social, moral and legal protection of veterans," he stressed.