One Russian in 12 is an Invalid, and Most Russians Feel They Get Too Little State Support

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 19 – Eight percent of Russians – nearly one in twelve -- identify themselves as invalids, 62 percent of all Russians say they know fellow countrymen who are handicapped in this way, and 69 percent of them believe Moscow provides insufficient support for invalids, according to a new VTsIOM survey (wciom.ru/analytical-reviews/analiticheskii-obzor/invalidy-i-obshchestvo-polozhenie-otnoshenie-problemy

            This survey and the share of Russians who have experience with invalids and who believe the government is not doing enough to help them represent for a significant departure from Soviet times when Moscow sought to hid the number of invalids from World War II and the appearance of invalids in Russian streets of invalids from Russia’s more recent wars.

            There were millions of invalids from World War II, but Moscow worked hard to hide this fact and often claimed that “there are no invalids in the USSR,” an outrageous suggestion Valery Fefelov used as the title of 1986 book. (On that, see Sarah Phillips, ’There are No Invalids in the USSR!”: A Missing Soviet Chapter in the New Disability History,” Disability Studies Quarterly, 29:3(2009) at dsq-sds.org/article/view/936/1111.)

            While the generation of those seriously wounded in World War II is rapidly passing from the scene, a new group of invalids has appeared in Russia, those who are victims of Moscow’s military campaigns in Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, Syria and Africa. And unlike in Soviet times, they are far more visible.

            On the one hand, the Russian government to its credit has done more to help invalids gain access to public facilities; and on the other, it has deinstitutionalized many as part of Putin’s “healthcare optimization” efforts to save money. Both have made invalids more visible and brought more Russians into contact with them.

            That is no small thing, and it is something the Kremlin must reckon on if it launches more and larger military campaigns. It may play down the number of those killed and wounded in these conflicts – it has done that in all conflicts under Putin – but it won’t be able to hide the invalids or prevent Russians from sympathizing with them.