Since January 2025, new restrictions on special pensions have begun in Ukraine. The Cabinet of Ministers, by its resolution # 1 of January 3, introduced the lowering coefficients to limit the high pensions that could have reached hundreds of thousands of hryvnias before. According to the Law on the State Budget for 2025, pension payments exceeding ten subsistence minimums (UAH 23 610) are subject to cutting. This rule applies to those "special -holders" who are not involved in the country's protection after 2014.
First of all, it is about prosecutors, individual officials, security forces and military. In total, new restrictions have affected 17.7 thousand pensioners. However, the efforts to reduce pension costs have resulted in a wave of lawsuits - hundreds of special pensioners sue, demanding to restore payments in full. On March 27, there were more than 840 court decisions in the Unified State Register, in most of which the Cabinet resolution was canceled.
Former prosecutor of Dnipropetrovsk region Viktor Matviychuk, who had previously been praised at 95 thousand hryvnias, filed a lawsuit when only 36 thousand in January received. However, he was refused: the court indicated that the use of coefficients is a new legal dispute not related to the previous decision to increase the pension.
Other ex-officials are more successful. For example, the former deputy prosecutor of the Poltava region Alexander Ozeriansky in March abolished the reducing coefficients, returning to him the full amount of the pension - UAH 72 thousand instead of 33 thousand.
There are other examples, such as Volodymyr Ridchenko, ex-prosecutor from Rivne. He received a court decision to increase the pension to UAH 63 thousand a few years ago, and now he tries to challenge it through new coefficients. The court refused him, again noting that this was another issue - a new dispute.
While part of special pensioners fights for the restoration of their privileges, there are those who have not been affected. These are about 7 thousand people - mostly military with combat experience, who remained with high pensions without any restrictions.
However, judges remain the most "inviolable" category. Thanks to the decision of the Constitutional Court, they retained the right to "life-long monetary detention" without any cutting. Now the largest payment from the Pension Fund is 390 thousand UAH, and receives it, according to journalists, the expert of the CCU Natalia Shaptala.
It is interesting that the contributions of judges to the Pension Fund are the same as that of other citizens - 22% of a single social contribution. However, unlike ordinary Ukrainians who can count on 30% of their former salaries, judges receive up to 90%.
The paradox is that those who have the least paid in the system often receive from it. Although the cutting of special specialty could save the budget of the Pension Fund UAH 1.3 billion a year - it is not so much in the scale of all expenses, but it would be a step towards a fairer system.
At present, officials, prosecutors and judges continue to fight for their hundreds of thousands of hryvnias, while the rest of Ukrainians are kept on the minimum and silently pays taxes.
