The moratorium on the freezing of the cumulative part of workers’ pensions has been further extended to 2017.

The announcement of a continuing freeze on the cumulative part of workers’ pensions was made by Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets. Originally promised as a one-off measure back in 2014, it is now set to enter its fourth successive year.

Dmitry Semenov, a State Duma candidate in Chuvashia, supported by Open Russia, is highly critical of this latest instance of regime backsliding. “The Russian government has again demonstrated its ineptitude. It cares only about absolving itself of social responsibility, and has no qualms about picking the pockets of ordinary people.

“Suffice to mention the earlier decision to replace index-linked pensions with a single payment. Now the cumulative part of the pension faces another freeze.

“It all adds to the mounting evidence of the government’s inability to patch the huge holes in the budget caused by various factors, above all the sluggishness of the entire Russian state apparatus.”