Kiev is accused of persecuting the people of Donbass and Crimea because it wants to legalize dual citizenship without including among the beneficiaries of the law the Ukrainians from the occupied regions, who were forced to take Russian citizenship.
NEWS: “In December, President Volodymyr Zelensky tabled five bills meant to legalize dual citizenship for representatives of the Western diaspora and facilitate their access to leadership positions in Ukraine. Strengthening the responsibility for dual citizenship is also proposed […] Zelensky’s citizenship bills include a number of discriminatory norms that allow American citizens to hold leadership positions, but not the Ukrainians who live in Donetsk. […] The people of the Donbass region will not even be second-class, but third- or fourth-class citizens”, Ukraina.ru writes in an article that speaks of a genuine ethnic genocide following the adoption of these legislative initiatives.
"Such initiatives are, in principle, in line with the policy of Kiev after Euromaidan, which aims to politicize citizenship and national identity. Only a person with radical pro-American or nationalist views should be considered a Ukrainian or a full-fledged citizen of Ukraine in order to perpetuate the country's current anti-Russian course”, according to the quoted source.
"Deprivation of liberty: Ukraine has declared war on the citizens of the Russian Federation," writes Izvestia, which states that through these laws, Kiev aims to punish the Russian-speaking population. "Kiev authorities have decided to declare war on the Crimean Peninsula, as well as on the DNR and LNR. They did it, as expected, in a sophisticated, covert form - wrapping the idea in an urgent citizenship bill”, the Sevastopol (Crimea) ForPost news portal reads. “Better not risk it. One thing is certain, the people of Crimea and Sevastopol, who value their freedom, should refrain from traveling to Ukraine. This opinion was expressed for ForPost by the head of the Working Group on International Legal Affairs within the Permanent Mission of Crimea to the President of the Russian Federation, Alexander Molokhov. As a result of the growing insanity of the Ukrainian authorities, absolutely any resident of Crimea can be detained, regardless of their official status”.
NARRATIVES: 1. Ukraine allows multiple citizenship to punish the people of Crimea and Donbass 2. Travelling to the territory of Ukraine is dangerous for the people of Crimea and Donbass, as anyone can be arrested without evidence of guilt.
LOCAL CONTEXT / ETHOS: Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula after the 2013-2014 Kiev Euromaidan and supported the separatist movements that sparked a bloody conflict in eastern Ukraine, which has so far left more than 13,000 dead. The international community has repeatedly condemned these aggressive actions perpetrated by Russia, which, according to the UN, the EU, the Council of Europe, OSCE and other organizations, grossly violates the principles of international law. In the early stages of the Donbass conflict, the self-proclaimed authorities of the Donetsk and Lugansk Republics (DNR, LNR) issued internationally unrecognized local identity cards and passports, and Russia granted Russian citizenship to all the Crimean residents.
In 2019, Moscow launched a large-scale campaign to grant citizenship to inhabitants of the occupied Donbass, although at narrative level it has never acknowledged to have been a party to the conflict in eastern Ukraine. This process of mass granting of Russian citizenship has been condemned by the international community, but also by Ukraine, whose diplomats have stated that the “passporting” Donbass is a de facto and de jure recognition that Moscow is a party to the conflict and an aggressor state.
In response, the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has submitted to the Ukrainian Parliament for consideration some bills aimed, on the one hand, at protecting the state from the security dangers caused by the mass granting of Russian citizenship to Ukrainians who were left against their will in Donbass and Crimea and, on the other hand, to provide a solution to the problem of dual citizenship - legally prohibited but widely encountered in Ukrainian society.
PURPOSE: The narratives are promoted to provoke fear of Ukraine in the Moscow-controlled or separatist-controlled regions, but also to thwart any efforts made by Kiev to get closer to its citizens in those regions. At the same time, the demonization campaign against Ukraine continues, and the country, although a victim of Russian aggression, is presented as an aggressor.
WHY THE NARRATIVE ARE FALSE: In reality, the bills submitted for consideration to the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian unicameral parliament) do not refer to the people of Donbass and Crimea. The purpose of the Ukrainian presidency, according to an explanatory note , is to allow Ukrainians in the diaspora to obtain Ukrainian citizenship without renouncing their other citizenship. On the other hand, some sanctions would be applied for not declaring or obtaining the citizenship of another state, designated as an aggressor by Parliament (Russia) or which acts against the territorial integrity of or is at war with Ukraine, which is about the Ukrainian citizens currently living in the territories under the control of the Ukrainian government.
All the above-mentioned legislative firsts do not apply to the Ukrainians in the occupied Donbass and the annexed Crimea, because there the granting of Russian citizenship took place against their will. As early as 2014, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a law that will not be amended by the new draft legislation, which states that Ukraine does not recognize documents issued by the Kremlin in Crimea. Therefore, it is not the fault of the Ukrainian citizens that they were granted Russian citizenship through blackmail or without being asked.
In 2019, Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers amended by means of a Government Ordinance the rules of entry to its territory, a document stating that Ukraine does not recognize Russian documents, including those proving Russian citizenship, in the case of Ukrainians from the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk republics. In the above-mentioned decree, the Ukrainian Government included a list of the competent bodies in Russia which dealt with the issuance of passports for its citizens, stating it will not recognize these documents as being legal. In this way, Ukraine holds Russia responsible for granting Russian citizenship to Ukrainians in the Donbass and Crimea, as the occupying force, and not its citizens. Therefore, the Ukrainians in Donbass and Crimea cannot be punished, fined, or sentenced to prison, according to the Russian press.
The theory about the Ukrainians from Donbass and Crimea being followed in the government-controlled areas of Kiev is also not true. The narrative in question is supported by no arguments, cases or clear evidence, and is just a continuation of the metanarrative about the “genocide of the Russophones” and Kiev’s Russophobia. Veridica analyzed a large disinformation campaign launched by the pro-Kremlin press in July-August this year, according to which students from Crimea and Donbass risk being persecuted in Ukraine. Russia's goal is to thwart any efforts Kiev might make to recover and reintegrate these territories.
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