Putin Signed Executive Order to a Fast-Track Procedure when Applying for Russian Citizenship by Refugees from Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed Executive Order to a fast-track procedure when applying for Russian citizenship by refugees from Ukraine who lived in the Donbas in 2014. The Executive Order is on the website of the Kremlin. Putin's Executive Order allows applying for citizenship to Ukrainians who lived in the Donbas before the armed conflict and have a legal status in Russia. Estimates of the number of such citizens vary – in April, Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs said that about 77 thousand Ukrainians have asylum in Russia, earlier in the Federation Council of Russia they said that about 2.5 million Ukrainians live in the country, who escaped from the armed conflict. In addition to former residents of the Donbas Putin granted the right to apply for citizenship to citizens of Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Syria, who were born in the territory of the RSFSR and had previously Soviet citizenship, their children, spouses and parents. People deported from Crimea during the Soviet Union and their close relatives also received the right to apply for citizenship.

• The law on fast-track issuance of passports to residents of states with complex socio-political and economic situation or armed conflicts in the territory came into force at the end of March in Russia.
• On April 24, the applying for citizenship on the basis of the law was fast-tracked for residents of the territories controlled by Pro-Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine. This decision was sharply criticized in Kiyv, EU countries and the United States. In response, President Vladimir Putin said that the Kremlin was discussing the possibility of fast-tracking of granting the Russian passport for all Ukrainians.

Svoboda.org