Government Proposed to Simplify Citizenship Procedure

The Russian government has proposed to simplify the procedure for obtaining citizenship for citizens of other states. The Kommersant newspaper writes about this on February 7, citing sources in the working group on the Concept of State Migration Policy implementation. The interlocutor of the publication clarified that it will be possible to obtain Russian citizenship without renouncing other existing citizenship. In addition, it was proposed to eliminate the need to confirm legitimate sources of income. These items will be removed from the article of the law “On Citizenship of the Russian Federation”. According to the State Duma Vice-Speaker Peter Tolstoy, deputies will consider the issue of obtaining citizenship for foreigners in the spring session. On January 29, the head of the Main Directorate for Migration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation Valentina Kazakova announced the simplification of obtaining Russian citizenship for residents of Ukraine and the Republic of Belarus. In 2019, almost 500 thousand foreign citizens received Russian citizenship. Most of those who received a Russian passport are citizens of Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Moldova, Uzbekistan and Armenia.