Minister Iryna Vereshchuk: Ukraine may introduce criminal liability for obtaining a Russian passport

The Minister of Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories, Iryna Vereshchuk, reported that today at a closed interdepartmental meeting, the issue of introducing criminal liability for obtaining a Russian passport was discussed.

"The question is not so much legal as political. On the one hand, the occupierʼs passport helps an ordinary person to survive the temporary occupation. On the other hand, how to explain it to our citizens who stand to die for us all on the front lines? Including for the fact that there will never be Russian passports on our land. You can have a long and difficult discussion about legal subtleties, human rights and the need to survive under occupation. But letʼs not forget: there is a lot of Ukrainian blood on the red Russian passport," she wrote in her Telegram.

Work is currently underway on the relevant draft law. Discussions are yet to come.

• The occupiers in the captured territories of Ukraine are actively trying to distribute Russian passports. There are currently no exact data on the number of issued passports.
• Even before the full-scale invasion, it was said that more than 350,000 Russian passports had been issued in the occupied Donetsk oblast alone.