Moscow has offered all citizens of Ukraine Russian passports under an express procedure. “All citizens of Ukraine have the right to obtain Russian citizenship under a simplified procedure,” says a decree of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In late May 2022, Russia began offering fast-track Russian citizenship to people from the two southern Ukrainian regions of Kherson and Zaporizhia, which are largely under the control of the Russian military. There are reports that the Russians there are already working on a referendum on joining Russia. For the residents of Donetsk and Luhansk, which are under the control of pro-Russian separatists, the rapid receipt of a Russian passport has been possible since 2019. According to the data of the Ministry of the Interior of Russia as of the middle of June, within three years more than 800,000 residents of Donbas have taken Russian passports. However, this data has not been confirmed by an independent source.
Ukrainian authorities accuse Moscow of pressuring Ukrainian citizens to take Russian passports and fear annexation of the occupied territories. “This is a new blow against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” said a statement from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, quoted by dw.com.
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