Some Ukrainian and Russian media reported that child care subsidies had been cancelled in Ukraine.
The pro-Russian website Politnavigator was one of the first to report this story on December 1, using the Ukrainian publication Delovaya Stolitsa as its source. The Delovaya Stolitsa story was published as far back as July 1, 2014.
On December 4, the fake story was reposted by nikmedia.com.ua and soon followed by several other websites: antikor.com.ua (the article was removed, but remained in cache), First Social Portal “Strike”, Vechirniy Kamianets.
Politnavigator editors, when rewriting the story, omitted two key paragraphs concerning an increase in childbirth allowances, and distorted the sense of the original article.
In late March 2014 the Ukrainian Parliament enacted a law that did in fact cancel child care allowances as of July 1, 2014. However, according to Ukraine’s Ministry of Social Policy, on that same day childbirth allowances were increased by more than 10 thousand hryvnias.
“In order to optimize social protection of households with children, a childbirth allowance and a child care allowance will be combined into a childbirth allowance”, states the Ministry website.
Natalie Jaresko, the Ukrainian Minister of Finance set the record straight in a rebuttal on the 1+1 television channel.
