Experts claim Putin's citizenship program in eastern Ukraine will cost Russia 100 billion rubles a year

Experts polled by the news website The Bell estimate that Vladimir Putin’s decision this week to simplify the path to citizenship for millions of people living in Ukraine’s separatist-controlled Donbas region will cost Moscow at least 100 billion rubles ($1.6 billion) in additional annual social-security payments.

Meanwhile, Russia’s labor and social protection minister, Maxim Topilin, told the news agency TASS that pension payments to those receiving Russian citizenship in eastern Ukraine won’t be a “heavy burden” on Russia’s Pension Fund.

• According to the magazine RBC, there are roughly 1 million retirement-age people living in the DNR and LNR. According to federal regulations, Russia’s minimum monthly pension is currently pegged at 8,846 rubles ($135). The average monthly pension nationwide is now 14,000 rubles ($215).
• Ukraine’s Treasury and National Bank, which issue welfare checks, retirement payments, and public servants’ salaries, have not operated in the separatist-controlled east since the summer of 2014. Journalists have said repeatedly that the Russian government has taken on these expenses, but Moscow has never confirmed these reports.
• The 2019 budget for Russia’s Pension Fund is 8.6 trillion rubles ($133 billion).