The Ministry of Defence has prohibited the early termination of payments to the families of missing persons

The Ministry of Defence of Ukraine has obliged military units to continue payments of monetary allowance to servicemen missing in action until a legal basis for their termination arises. This refers to a court decision that has entered into force declaring the serviceman missing or officially registering his death.

The corresponding separate instruction No. 4264/ud of 23 September 2026 has already been communicated to military command bodies, military units, institutions and organisations. As reported by the Ministry of Defence, the document is intended to eliminate the practice of stopping payments to families before the legally established deadline.

The Ministry explained that in some military units monetary allowance was stopped after documents on the identification of the serviceman's body appeared. However, such identification alone is not a legal basis for the termination of payments.

For this, either a death record or a judicial decision stipulated by law is required. Until one of these documents appears, the military unit is obliged to continue accruals.

The monetary allowance of a missing serviceman is paid monthly on the basis of an order of the commander or head of the relevant unit, institution or organisation. Payments continue until the day the court decision declaring the serviceman missing comes into force or until the date of drawing up the death record inclusive.

In this case, the deadline for payment is the day the serviceman is removed from the lists of the unit’s personnel.

The Ministry of Defence emphasises that body identification and state registration of death are different legal procedures. Therefore, it is now expressly prohibited to stop payments solely on the basis of identification documents or other documents not provided for by applicable law.

As a next step, the Ministry plans to amend Order No. 280 of the Ministry of Defence. It intends to separately provide that a serviceman can be removed from the personnel lists in connection with death only on the basis of a death record.

The new instruction was adopted in accordance with the law “On Social and Legal Protection of Servicemen and Members of Their Families”, as well as the government procedure for payments to prisoners of war, internees and missing servicemen.