Putin decree gives all Ukrainians path to Russian citizenship

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Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a news conference in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Dec. 20, 2012. Putin says a draft bill banning U.S. adoptions of Russian children is a legitimate response to a new U.S. law that calls for sanctions on Russians deemed to be human rights violators. But he has not committed to signing it. (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze)

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Monday extending a simplified Russian naturalisation process to all citizens of Ukraine, a document published on the government’s website showed.

Previously, a simplified procedure for acquiring Russian citizenship applied only to residents of the self-proclaimed breakaway territories of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) in eastern Ukraine, which Russia seeks to “liberate” from Kyiv’s control, as well as the Russian-occupied regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the state news agency TASS reported.

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