MOSCOW, January 4. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed an executive order on an easier procedure for obtaining Russian citizenship by Ukrainian nationals who resided in Crimea and Sevastopol before March 2014.

The published document harmonizes the previous requirements with the ‘Law on Citizenship of the Russian Federation’, which entered into effect last October.

Since May 2019, Russia has had a simplified naturalization procedure for Ukrainians who had lived in Crimea and Sevastopol until March 2014. In late October 2023, a new law on citizenship came into effect in Russia. The current executive order grants Ukrainian nationals, who had left Crimea and Sevastopol before March 2014, the right to obtain Russian citizenship in a simplified procedure in accordance with the new law.

Furthermore, according to the executive order, citizens of Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Syria who were born in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) and were citizens of the Soviet Union, as well as people who were illegally deported from the Crimean Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic (ASSR) can obtain Russian citizenship in a simplified procedure.

The simplified naturalization procedure also extends to Ukrainian nationals and stateless people who have a temporary residence permit in Russia, a residence permit, a temporary asylum certificate, a refugee certificate or a certificate of a participant in the national program for the voluntary resettlement of compatriots living abroad, or who lived permanently in certain areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine as of April 2014, as well as their children, spouses and parents.