Russia not yet granting citizenship to Donbas residents
Following a decree by the Russian President to simplify the passport issuance process for people living in the so-called Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics (LDPR) in eastern Ukraine, the Migration Service in Rostov has been bombarded with applications – all of which have been rejected, said Russian MP from Rostov-on-Don Anatoly Kotlyarov in a Facebook post.
“Citizenship? Aha. You’re getting ahead of yourselves! The Interior Ministry has received 1309 appeals concerning rejected citizenship applications,” Kotlyarov wrote under his video message.
The MP claims to have sat for two hours in the Rostov Migration Service, after which the head of the institution said that “Citizens of the LDPR are not covered by the president’s decree, which applies to Russian territory”.
In a video that Kotlyarov published later, he said that the migration service has heard of the decree but does not yet know how to implement it. “Citizens” of the LDPR must exit Russia and obtain the passport in the territory where they reside officially. In Kotlyarov’s opinion, it is absurd that people who already live in Russia would have to return to the LDPR to acquire a Russian passport. The MP promised to fight the system invented by the officials and urged citizens to monitor the migration office’s failure to implement the decree.
Recently Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the decision to facilitate the issuance of Russian passports to Donbas residents is humanitarian in nature, since “the situation they have found themselves in cannot be tolerated”.