Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday issued a decree expediting the procedure for granting Russian citizenship to all Ukrainians, more than four months after the start of the Russian military offensive in Ukraine.
According to the decree, “all citizens of Ukraine have the right to apply for citizenship of the Russian Federation under the facilitation of procedures.”
On April 27, during a visit to Beijing, the Russian president stated that Russia intends to facilitate the acquisition of Russian citizenship for all Ukrainians.
“We are considering granting citizenship in a simplified way to all citizens of Ukraine, and not only to citizens of the Lugansk and Donetsk republics,” Putin told reporters.
On May 25, he signed Russian President Putin Decree facilitating the procedures for obtaining a Russian passport for the people of Zaporizhia and Kherson regions in southern Ukraine.
Kyiv condemned the matter at the time, saying that “the plan to grant Russian passports is a flagrant violation of Ukrainian sovereignty.”
Kyiv declared that Moscow’s plan to make it easier for Ukrainians living in Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine to obtain Russian citizenship violated international law, and accused the Kremlin of “criminal” behavior.
“The illegal issuance of passports is a flagrant violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as the rules and principles of international humanitarian law,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The Kherson region in southern Ukraine is under the full control of Russian forces, while Moscow partially controls the Zaporizhia region, located in the southeast.
Moscow and officials loyal to it stated that the two regions would become part of Russia.
In 2009, a decree was issued allowing the acceleration of similar measures for the people of the separatist “republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.
The decree did not require applicants to have resided in Russia, nor to provide evidence that they have sufficient funds or that they have passed a Russian language exam.
Hundreds of thousands of citizens of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions have already received Russian passports.