The Parliament supported granting service members the right to determine on their own the persons to whom their military pay would be paid in case they go missing or are captured.

A vote in the Verkhovna Rada resulted in 301 MPs endorsing the draft law titled “On Amendments to Article 9 of the Law of Ukraine ‘On Social and Legal Protection of Military Personnel and Members of Their Families” in its entirety.

“The changes aim to strengthen the social protection of our military personnel and their families. This will give more confidence to defenders that their relatives will not be left without support in difficult situations. I thank the MPs and the Parliamentary Committee on National Security, Defense, and Intelligence for cooperating on this important draft law,” said Minister of Defence of Ukraine Rustem Umerov.

The recently passed law allows service members to specify, via a personal order submitted to their military unit commander, who will be paid their military pay in case they go missing or are captured.