Photo: ALEXANDER NEMENOV/POOL/AFP / Getty Images
For: EFE Updated 25 May 2022, 10: 07 am EDT
Russian President Vladimir Putin simplified the granting of Russian citizenship to the inhabitants of the Ukrainian regions of Kherson and Zaporizhia, partially occupied by the Russian army and which are key to the land corridor with the annexed Crimean peninsula.
The president modified the decree of April 2019 that simplified the Russian passport application for the inhabitants of the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, which make up Donbas. Now, the decree also includes the southern regions of Zaporizhia, neighboring Donetsk, and Kherson, bordering Crimea.
At the time of launching the 24 February “special military operation” in Ukraine, Putin challenged as an argument the “liberation” of Donbas to protect pro-Russian citizens “from genocide”.
However, as the military campaign progressed, Russian troops occupied the southern part of Kherson’s territories, which includes the regional capital, and Zaporizhia, and the port of Berdyansk, bathed by the Sea of Azov.
The governments installed by Moscow have expressed their aspiration to enter the Russian Federation through referendums.
“The future of the Zaporizhia region can be only one. It must be part of Russia, it must be a full member of the Russian Federation” , Vladimir Rogov, a member of the local administration council, told the RIA Nóvosti agency.
Local authorities have begun to enter the Russian ruble as currency of exchange
- and for the payment of pensions to the detriment of the Ukrainian hryvnia in Kherson and part of Zaporizhia.
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Several hundred thousand Ukrainians residing in Donbas, received citizenship before the start of the current military campaign and even participated in the Russian legislative elections of 2021.
Vladimir Putin recognized the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republic, three days before the start of the armed intervention in Ukraine.
The strategy The citizenship granting procedure, known as “underground annexation”, has been applied by the Kremlin since the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, from the Moldovan breakaway republic of Transnistria to the Georgian republic of South Ossetia.
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