War will write off everything - Layout

After the announcement of “partial” mobilization, there were many debtor fathers at the front. Some, as Vorstka found out, went there to escape their obligations - otherwise they would face criminal punishment for non-payment of alimony.

This situation suddenly helped some of the mothers - for the first time in years they received alimony thanks to front-line payments from their ex-husbands. Others, on the contrary, stopped receiving money due to bureaucratic delays. As for the debtors themselves, who went to the front, all restrictions imposed by bailiffs were lifted from them: they can travel abroad and use their bank accounts. They will not be able to withdraw money earned during the war for the benefit of their children. “Layout” tells how the war affects the payment of alimony in Russia.

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“He liked to pay alimony of 250 rubles”

Yulia Tereshina is an accountant from Kommunar. For several years in a row she could not receive child support. The ex-husband, Vladimir, either paid nothing at all or transferred several hundred rubles a month.

She says that she divorced Vladimir shortly after the birth of her daughter. The relationship deteriorated due to the fact that her husband stopped earning money, and Yulia could not provide for the whole family alone.

“Before the child was born, he was engaged in road work and installing plastic windows,” says the girl. “It brought in little money, but at least it brought in something.” After Varya was born , he settled at home, and we lived at the expense of my mother.”

Julia tried to persuade her husband to find a job, but to no avail. Then she took the child and moved in with her mother. She says that Vladimir did not want to get a divorce. One day he even came and stole the marriage registration certificate from the nightstand. And yet, after a few months, he agreed to a divorce.

Julia immediately filed for alimony. But Vladimir did not work officially and did not transfer anything to support his daughter. A year after the divorce, the girl accidentally found out that her ex-husband worked in a factory. According to the girl, she went to the company’s accounting department and made sure that 25% - 2.5 thousand rubles - were withheld from his salary.

But she did not receive these payments for long. Vladimir, according to Yulia, soon left the factory and was again left without official income. He was brought to both administrative and criminal liability for failure to pay alimony. The debt nevertheless continued to accumulate and by November 2022 reached 800 thousand rubles. In order not to pay the money, Vladimir even tried to challenge his paternity in court. But a DNA test confirmed that Varya is his daughter .

Julia raised Varya alone, only her parents helped her. Vladimir, although he lived in the same city, stopped even saying hello to his ex-wife and daughter on the street. Julia had to work and study at the same time. In the end, having trained as a financier, she found a new job, began to earn more and got married again. Julia’s new husband, according to her, became a “real father” for Varya.

And yet Julia wanted to achieve justice. By 2022, her ex-husband Vladimir was at the labor exchange and receiving unemployment benefits. From this benefit they collected alimony - several hundred rubles. To Julia it seemed almost a mockery. “He liked to stand on the stock exchange and pay alimony of 250 rubles. This could go on forever,” says Yulia.

She filed a lawsuit asking to change the form of alimony payment - from interest to a fixed amount. The girl says that the court sided with her . The ex-husband was ordered to pay alimony in the amount of the subsistence minimum for the child - about 14 thousand rubles.

At the same time, Yulia filed another lawsuit - for the recovery of a penalty. According to her, at the next meeting, on October 20, it became clear: the decision would not be in Vladimir’s favor. On October 21, he went to the military registration and enlistment office and asked to volunteer for the war. He did not appear at the next - final - meeting.

On November 8, the Gatchina City Court made a decision. According to Yulia, Vladimir’s income should be charged 45% to pay off the debt.

“I’m sure his friends could have told him something like: ‘You go to war, the bailiffs will close the case, forgive all debts,’ ” says Yulia.

With Vladimir leaving for the front, new difficulties arose. The bailiffs removed all restrictions from him and told Yulia that now she would definitely not get alimony from him.

“No answer, no hello”

After mobilization, many women found themselves in a similar situation. The ex-husband, who owed a large amount of alimony, went to the front. The bailiffs closed his case and lifted the restrictions, and the Ministry of Defense is in no hurry to withhold alimony.

Since the fall, thematic groups have been operating on VKontakte, where women tell similar stories about debtor ex-husbands and share advice. One of the participants in such groups, Olga Knyazeva from Serov, told Vorstka that she is raising a seven-year-old son alone.

Previously, according to Olga, her ex-husband paid her alimony - 7-8 thousand rubles a month. He did not pay them himself - the money regularly came from his employer.

Four months ago the man was mobilized, and since then there have been no payments. Olga says that she tried to contact the Ministry of Defense to obtain payment of alimony . But, as she claims, there was “no way to get through.”

Another participant in such a public, Natalya Kryukovskaya from St. Petersburg, says that she accidentally learned about the mobilization of her ex-husband in November. According to Natalya, by that time the man already owed the child more than 250 thousand rubles in alimony.

The girl hoped that now that her ex-husband is at the front, he has an official employer - the Ministry of Defense - and she will be able to receive alimony. She immediately called the bailiffs, and they promised her that they would send an application for the collection of alimony to the Unified Settlement Center of the Ministry of Defense. But since then, according to Natalya, “no answer, no greeting” from them, and the money never came.

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How debtors try to evade responsibility by going to war

The problem of alimony in Russia has been acute before. According to data for the nine months of 2021, the total alimony debt in the country is more than 156 billion rubles. In 2022, the punishment for non-payment of alimony has become more severe. Previously, only “malicious” defaulters were brought to criminal liability - that is, those who did not pay alimony at all. If the debtor transferred at least part of the alimony, the courts considered that there was no “malice” in his behavior, explains State Duma deputy, former head of the Bailiff Service for the Republic of Bashkortostan Zarif Bayguskarov.

“For example, a case was initiated regarding a debt of 500 thousand rubles,” explains the deputy. “The debtor paid 10–15 thousand rubles of the total amount, and the case was terminated.”

Now “partial” payment does not work: in order for the case to be terminated, the debt must be fully repaid.

Amendments to tighten liability came into force in January 2022. But a month later the war began and made its own adjustments. Debtors have new mechanisms to avoid liability.

Having studied the databases of Russian courts, Vorstka found out that some men took advantage of the mobilization to obtain a reprieve from punishment for failure to pay alimony. This happened, for example, in the Amur, Saratov and Jewish Autonomous Regions. There, the men asked the court to postpone execution of the sentence while they participated in hostilities. Their requests were granted.

Thanks to mobilization, debtors were also able to dispose of large sums of money to the detriment of children and women . Bailiffs stopped enforcement proceedings against all men who decided to go to the front. They were allowed to travel abroad and their bank accounts were unblocked. While the debtor is at war, the bailiff cannot seize his income.

If a man returns from a combat zone, you can try to collect money again through bailiffs. But it is not easy and does not always end in success.

“Those who returned from hostilities have a good amount of money in their accounts,” says lawyer Alexandra Kuznetsova. “If a woman knows that the child’s father has returned from the front, she needs to quickly contact the bailiffs, ask them to resume enforcement proceedings and seize the debtor’s account.”

But the debtor can ask the Ministry of Defense to transfer payments to a relative’s bank account. He may also have time to withdraw money from the account before the bailiffs initiate new enforcement proceedings. In this case, all payments will remain with him.

And even if the ex-wife manages to obtain alimony from the combatant, most likely it will be a modest amount that does not correspond to his real income. The fact is that alimony can only be collected from military allowances . And the main amount of his salary - various social payments from the Ministry of Defense - is considered untouchable. “Therefore, a military man can receive 150–200 thousand rubles a month, but pay pennies in alimony,” explains Alexandra Kuznetsova.

Many bailiffs completely refuse to send documents to the Ministry of Defense, asking women to do this themselves, says lawyer Yulia Smirnova.

“This creates great difficulties for women,” says Smirnova. “They lack information, there is little of it on the Internet and it is vague, so women make mistakes in statements. But even if everything is filled out correctly, the woman may receive a refusal from the Ministry of Defense.”

According to the lawyer, many women were asked by the Ministry of Defense to write applications for alimony payments to the financial department of the unit where the child’s father serves . “But most often women do not have such information, and they have to find out which unit the ex-husband is attached to,” says Smirnova.

“They said that since he left, now I definitely won’t get anything.”

Accountant Yulia Tereshina eventually managed to get alimony from her ex-husband, who went to the front. But she spent a lot of effort for this.

At first, the bailiffs simply refused to send documents to the Ministry of Defense. Her ex-husband received money for participating in hostilities, and all of it remained with him.

“Roughly speaking, I lived with the bailiffs all December,” says Yulia. “I had to take time off from work and travel at my own expense. I argued with them, proving that I had the right to receive alimony from his salary. And they told me that since he left, now I definitely won’t get anything.”

After much persuasion and conversation, the bailiffs finally decided to collect 70% of Vladimir’s income - 25% for current alimony, the rest to pay off the debt. The documents were sent, but a few weeks later, when Yulia called the Ministry of Defense, she was told that the withholding of alimony was denied - it turned out that one stamp on the documents was missing. Yulia got the bailiffs to correct the errors and resend the papers.

In February 2023, Yulia received a transfer to her bank card - 31,868 rubles. These were alimony payments transferred by the Ministry of Defense. After several years of struggle, she still managed to recover money from her ex-husband - thanks to the fact that he went to the front .

True, the funds are written off only from his allowance. Vladimir will continue to receive payments from the Ministry of Defense. Yulia is sure that the large alimony debt could be paid off faster if the interest was collected not from the allowance, but from the full salary of the ex-husband. “He has about 150 thousand left after the deduction,” she believes.

Note: While this article was being prepared, Olga Knyazeva reported that she was still able to get the Ministry of Defense to withhold alimony from her ex-husband. For January she received 9,900 rubles.

Illustrations: Dmitry Osinnikov

Daria Kucherenko