Without this, pensions will not be counted: thousands of elderly people are facing a problem

Tens of thousands of Ukrainian pensioners living abroad are facing problems due to new identification requirements introduced by the Pension Fund. The main issue is that their Soviet passports can no longer be used for digital identity verification.

According to government resolution No. 299, pensioners residing abroad for more than six months must undergo annual identification exclusively in digital format starting February 2025. Without this procedure, pension payments will be automatically suspended without warning.

The main problem is that only an ID card or biometric passport is needed for electronic identification. The old paper documents are not recognized by the system, complicating the situation for pensioners who found themselves abroad after the war began.

A particularly difficult situation arises for Ukrainian pensioners in Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic, where obtaining new Ukrainian documents can take a long time. The issue is that the Pension Fund system does not provide any deferrals or exceptions for identification.

It is especially painful that pension payments are not restored for past periods. Therefore, if a pensioner delays obtaining new documents and undergoing identification, they might lose several months of pension payments.

Ukrainian pensioners abroad are facing challenges in identification since old Soviet passports are unsuitable for digital identity verification. This situation is exacerbated by the fact that pensioners may find themselves without pension payments if they can't complete the identification process on time, and obtaining new documents may take a long time, especially in certain countries like Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic.