Medical expert commissions to be phased out – Zelensky’s decree
Source: president.gov.ua
On Tuesday, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has signed a decree that will pull the plug on medical social expert commisions after they were found granting fake disability status to prosecutors across the country. As part of this plan, the medical-social expert commissions can be dissolved starting December 31, 2024.
The decree orders a comprehensive inspection of MSEC war-time decisions on disability status granted to officials and commands that any unjustified rulings be reassessed.
The National Security Council has recommended that reports on how this issue is addressed must come from the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI), the National Police, and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau report
The government is required to draft several legislative proposals for Parliament, including:
- A bill developed with the Ministry of Health to reform the medical-social assessment system, introducing an evaluation framework for individuals with limited daily functioning, and officially dissolving the MSECs by December 31, 2024.
- A bill with the Ministry of Social Policy to revise the pension system for public officials to ensure fairness in pensions and benefits calculations.
- A bill with the Prosecutor General’s Office to regulate salary and pension and benefits structures for prosecutors, with a focus on social protections for those with disabilities.
The government will need to join forces with the Pension Fund, SBI, National Police, and SBU, to conduct an audit of pension payments granted on the basis of disability to public officials.
In 2025, the deadliest year yet for civilians, Ukraine’s three largest charitable foundations raised a record 105.9 billion hryvnias. It is more than the years 2022–2024 combined. According to the UN, humanitarian aid in Ukraine was delivered by more than 450 organisations, reaching five million people over the course of the year. Civic foundations hold licences to purchase lethal weapons, which is a function states have monopolised for centuries. These record sums were underwritten by international government grants, which means foreign states now channel billions directly through Ukrainian civic funds, bypassing inter-state channels. It is hard to imagine a stronger institutional trust in civil society.
During the GLOBSEC Defence Forum 2026 in Prague, representatives of “Steel Front”, an initiative by Rinat Akhmetov, discussed with NATO delegations, military officials, and representatives of the European defense industry the lessons learned from Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine.
After the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine witnessed an unprecedented wave of private support for the army. Citizens, big businesses, charitable foundations, and international philanthropists began financing the country’s defense alongside state assistance provided by international partners. Estimates of total private contributions range from tens to hundreds of billions of hryvnias. However, determining the exact amount remains difficult. In many cases, companies combine military aid, humanitarian programs, tax payments, social spending, and employee support in their reporting.
Rinat Akhmetov’s military initiative, “Steel Front”, has delivered a batch of drones worth UAH 214 million to the 1st “Azov” Corps of the National Guard of Ukraine. This shipment is part of the Metinvest Group’s ongoing support for the unit in 2025.
On October 6, the Administrative Cassation Court within the Supreme Court of Ukraine continued hearing case No. 990/80/25, in which the fifth President and leader of the party “European Solidarity”, Petro Poroshenko, seeks to have Presidential Decree No. 81/2025 from February 12, 2025 — enacting sanctions by the decision of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) — declared illegal and annulled. The plaintiff claims the document was falsified and that the sanctions are a tool of political persecution of the opposition, contrary to international norms. Government representatives deny the allegations and insist their actions were lawful. Journalists of Bukvy were present at the hearing.