Image by Andrew Butko
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree making it easier for residents of pro-Russian separatist controlled Donbass in East Ukraine to acquire Russian citizenship, applying further pressure to Kyiv as Moscow looks to absorb the region. The move was accomplished on the very day Ukraine confirmed comedian Volodymyr Zelensky as the winner in Ukraine’s recent presidential election, overturning the rule of Putin’s nemesis, oligarch Petro Poroshenko.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree, which makes it possible for residents of certain regions of southeastern Ukraine to obtain Russian citizenship under a simplified procedure. The document has been published on the Kremlin’s website, reported Russian state news outlet TASS.
“Individuals permanently residing in certain areas of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Lugansk regions have the right to apply for Russian citizenship under a simplified procedure,” the decree reads.
In 2017, Putin signed an executive order recognizing the passports from the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics as valid in Russia. The move was widely regarded as the first step toward the official recognition of the two breakaway regions, reported The Moscow Times.
Starting Wednesday, Russia’s Interior Ministry is instructed to consider applications within three months of submission. Putin enacted the new measures “to protect the human and civil rights and freedoms” of the local residents, the Kremlin said, added The Moscow Times.
The Russian leadership continues to apply pressure on regions of its ‘near abroad’ which have gravitated towards the West after the fall of the Soviet Union.
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4 comments
I’m not sure what the purpose of this article is, other than to sew discord.
Was there a change to Russian law made by the Duma, and Putin, like any other head of state, signed it into law?
Was this an administrative change in how applications are processed, which occur regularly in any country?
I suspect the fact that the majority of the population in Donbass and Lugansk are ethnic Russians may have something to do with the changes. My grandfather was born in Scotland in the 19th century. At the time he was born, he was also a citizen of France through a 300 year old treaty, which was ended by the French in 1910. By virtue of my grandfather being born in the UK, I am entitled to UK citizenship through a simplified process. Is this the kind of “decree” that was signed?
The area poopbutt took over was and still is Ukraine. This is the area where I was born under soviet command.
Of course. This was anticipated.
The overwhelming election resul of the opposition candidate to the sitting president, who had resisted the separatist movement, is a capitulation of Ukraine to Russia.
Likely this is the end of Ukraine and it will be part of Russian Federation by the end of the new presidents term.
If not the entirety of Ukraine, certainly the Donbass region, and Kiev will be helpless to resist, and the rest of Ukraine may be on the chopping block as well. .
Ukraine has been de-fanged and declawed.
The EU and NATO have sit by Russian Federation incursions, perhaps wringing their hands at times, but Germany, the lynch pin of the EU economy has chosen to profit from trade with Russian Federation over effective sanctions and UK banks also seem to value rubles over sanctions as well, and if UK actually leaves the EU through Brexit, it will be the opening of hunting season for unrestrained profits.
While Trump has enabled Ukraine to buy some lethal weaponry, Javelin anti-armor missile systems, likely too little too late, or as General Douglas MacArthur said, all military crises can be summarized as “Too late”.
It’s only fitting that a comedian be in charge now.
It would likely require at least a hundred billion dollars transfused into the Ukrainian economy to enable it’s continued existence as a sovereign entity to restore employment and building an effective military, and there may not be any belief or loyalty to Ukraine as an actual country now after Soviet occupation, the massive, depopulation by famine in the 30’s, the ravages of war in WWII, the deportation of the Tartars by Stalin, the Holocaust and subsequent fleeing of Jewish remnants.
The new Ukrainian government is controlled by neo-Nazi, racist, Ukrainian nationalist parties of the far right, who hate Russians as well as Jews. It is a rump parliament with no legitimacy under international or constitutional law. The two major parties representing the east and the south, which had overwhelmingly supported the democratically elected pro-Russian government, were excluded from the process. When those regions held their own referendum, voting to secede from Ukraine and to petition Russia for annexation, the thuggish government invaded them. Crimea’s petition for annexation was accepted by Russia; and coming under Russian protection, Crimea was not invaded. But in Donbass, 90% of whose residents had voted for the pro-Russian government but whose petition for annexation was rejected by Russia, ethnic cleansing of Russian-speaking Ukrainians is being ruthlessly implemented.