Page 8 - UKRRptJun19

2.0 Politics
2.1 Russia simplifies citizenship for wider categories of Ukrainians
Russian President Putin signed a decree on May 1 simplifying the procedure for gaining Russian citizenship to wider categories of Ukrainian citizens, as well as those without citizenship, affected by the Russian occupation of Donbas and Crimea. These categories include Ukrainian refugees with residency in Russia, those who left Donbas before the conflict erupted in March 2014, and those determined to have been illegally deported from Crimea, among other categories. The timeframe for applying for citizenship is three months, as established by the decree.
Those Ukrainians who have resided in the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk (collectively known as Donbas), and take Russian citizenship under the simplified procedures, will have to surrender their Ukrainian citizenship, Yuriy Hrymchak, the deputy minister for the temporarily occupied territories, told the 5 Kanal television network on April 30. He stressed that Ukrainian law only allows for single citizenship, and Russia’s offer of citizenship intends to further destabilize Ukraine by interfering in its domestic affairs, and to extend legal protection to the Russian-backed fighters and government workers in Donbas, among other geopolitical aims.
In recent comments, Putin continued to indicate his intention of bringing about Ukraine’s capitulation in order to bring the nation-state back into Russia’s sphere of influence. During an April 27 press conference, Putin said Ukrainians are paying twice as much for natural gas than they need to, and Russia is ready to cut prices by at least 25% under a new agreement, as reported by the Interfax news agency.
In response to comments made on Facebook on April 27 by President-elect Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who suggested granting Ukrainian citizenship to Russians and all peoples “who suffer from authoritarian and corrupt regimes,” Putin said on April 29 that he welcomes the proposal considering that Russians and Ukrainians are a single people with much in common, despite differences in language and culture.
“This speaks to the fact that we’ll probably reach an agreement,” Putin said of Zelenskiy when learning of the comments. “If they will grant citizenship to Russians in Ukraine, and we (grant it) to Ukrainians in Russia, we will get to a common denominator and a desired result quite quickly. We’ll have a common citizenship.”
Zenon Zawada of Concorde Capital said in a note: “We can expect Putin to continue to impose gradually new measures every week that indirectly, but ultimately undermine the value of Ukrainian statehood and citizenship. We can also expect Putin to impose gradually new measures every week that pressure President-elect Zelenskiy to capitulate to Russian demands in Ukraine, in exchange for Zelenskiy being able to give the Ukrainian public their most popular demands from him, especially ending the armed fighting in Donbas and cutting household natural gas prices.
In dealing with Putin, Zelenskiy essentially has two options. The first is capitulating and gaining these Russian concessions that will solidify his wide
8 UKRAINE Country Report June 2019 www.intellinews.com