Number of Russian passports issued to Ukrainian citizens revealed

Several months ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree simplifying the procedure for obtaining Russian citizenship for residents of the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Some time later, it became known that Russia intends to soon offer citizenship through a simplified procedure to residents of other Ukrainian regions as well.

Almost 45,000 Ukrainians took advantage of the right to obtain a Russian passport in just the first half of 2019.

A further 30,000-plus received permission to reside in Russia. This is according to statistics provided by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.

Another nearly 30,000 Ukrainian citizens received residence permits. They will subsequently also be able to obtain a Russian passport.

And while previously the discussion concerned only internal documents, information has now appeared in a number of media outlets about the possibility of obtaining a foreign passport.

Statistics from previous years

According to data from open sources, over 83,000 Ukrainians acquired Russian citizenship in 2018.  In 2017, a Russian passport was issued to more than 85,000 Ukrainian citizens.

At the same time, many of them did not renounce their Ukrainian citizenship and consequently successfully use two passports at once.

In particular, this applies to residents of the Crimean Peninsula, who began mass-applying for Russian passports five years ago. Immediately after receiving the document, many travelled to the mainland part of Ukraine, where they filed a report of loss for the document and then obtained a new one.

The Ukrainian passport allows for the issuance of a biometric document, which enables visa-free entry into most European states.

At the same time, the procedure for residents of Crimea is simplified.

A similar situation exists for residents of Donbas. Many of them obtain both documents in order to subsequently receive pensions from two states. To facilitate the task, there are even specific companies that take on the processing of documents. The main thing is to pay the agreed-upon sum in advance.

Thus, a person does not need to stand in huge queues, wasting their time and nerves.

It should be noted that Ukraine does not recognise dual citizenship. However, who does that concern? After all, the possession of two passports is not monitored in any way in practice.