Vladimir Putin asked Mikhail Zurabov, chairman of the board of the Pension Fund, to tell him how the instructions of the State Council presidium on the veterans and pensioners’ problems, which met last week in St Petersburg, were being implemented.
Zurabov said that the decision on the payment of compensation to people who had become disabled during childhood in the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945) had been prepared and written into a draft law that was to go to the Government soon.
Zurabov also told the President about measures that might be taken to resolve the problem of pension security for priests. After 1990, priests of the four main denominations were included in the pension security system, but their work record before 1990 was not taken into account.
On the same day, the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation and the Russian Orthodox Church signed a cooperation agreement.
Under the agreement, the Pension Fund would provide all possible assistance to the Episcopate, priests, monks and vergers in exercising their right to a full work pension, with due account for their work before 1990.