Prime Minister Iurie Leanca on the last week-end met participants in the fights to defend the integrity and independence of Moldova and tackled their problems and measures due to be undertaken for their support.

About 26,000 Transnistria  war veterans are registered in Moldova. Attending the discussions were also veterans of the Afghanistan armed conflict and participants in Chernobyl accident.

“I think time is ripe to switch to more facts. Therefore, I launch initiatives with a general title, "Sacrifice deserves respect," which is to bring back the well-deserved respect of state and society for veterans. This is a complex approach in relation with veterans, we record for the first time ever”, he noted.

Thus, the government is set to promote the state's policies in social and legal assistance of veterans, at the level of the European ones, to create and strengthen a system of mechanisms to ensure social protection of veterans, to back the veterans’ participation in the patriotic education of the young generation.

In this context, the involvement of public authorities, as well as of veteran organisations is needed, which would optimise the work of the national council on problems of participants in armed conflicts. It is also necessary that the Council improves its activity regulation, veterans' organizations develop partnerships with economic agents, a single centre for legal assistance of veterans be set up, etc. At the same time, he stressed the need for joint projects with veterans' organizations from abroad and that the veterans open a fund for their support.

“These initiatives, which are to be enforced in the next four years, will make the social protection of veterans a priority for the government, as well as an opportunity to use the huge potential of the veterans, to strengthen the country’s statehood,” Leanca added.

Subsequently, the premier, accompanied by veterans, attended a charity event, donating money for the treatment of a nine-year-old boy, sick with leukaemia, as well as for families with many children.