In occupied areas
Russia distributes passports to Ukrainians
06/11/2022, 2:58 p.m
Moscow is trying to tie the occupied cities in eastern Ukraine to itself. Through a “simplified procedure,” residents of Kherson and Zaporizhia will be issued with Russian passports. The Ukrainian government sharply condemned the process and declared it “legally void”.
Russia has issued the first Russian passports to residents of the occupied Ukrainian city of Cherson. 23 residents of the city in southern Ukraine received new identity papers during a ceremony, the official Russian news agency Tass reported. At the end of May, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree that allows passports to be issued using the “simplified procedure”. This also applies to the Zaporizhia region, which is also partially controlled by Russia.
“All of our residents in Kherson want to get a passport and (Russian) citizenship as soon as possible,” pro-Russian regional chief Vladimir Saldo said, according to TASS. “This is the beginning of a new era for us,” he was quoted as saying by the Ria Nowosti news agency. The Kherson region had been almost completely captured by the Russian army at the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine.
Ukraine had condemned the introduction of the special passport procedure and spoke of an “egregious violation” of its territorial integrity. “The Russian presidential decree is legally void and does not affect” the Ukrainian citizenship of residents “of the territories temporarily occupied by Russia,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said at the time.
According to TASS, more than 800,000 people in the eastern Ukrainian separatist areas have received simplified Russian citizenship in the past three years. Just under one percent of the applications from residents of the self-proclaimed People’s Republics of Luhansk and Donetsk were rejected, the news agency reported, citing the Ministry of the Interior in Moscow. In April 2019, Putin issued a decree that made it easier for Ukrainians in Donbass to become Russian citizens.
According to critics, the many new Russians serve as a tool for the Kremlin to expand its influence in eastern Ukraine. Areas that Russia’s troops have occupied since the war began at the end of February of this year are also to be tied more closely to Moscow in this way. The Russian ruble is to be introduced there as a means of payment.