Dy PM Vereshchuk asserts Ukrainians obtaining Russian passport should be deemed crime

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk has called for a "clearer and stricter stance" on obtaining a passport of Ukraine and voting in their "referendums." Taking to her Facebook account, Vereshchuk noted that Ukrainians obtaining passports from Russia should be considered a "crime" against Ukraine. Her statement comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, 11 July, issued the decree simplifying the process for obtaining Russian citizenship for all Ukraine nationals.

"We have to say clearly: this is a crime against our state! When it comes to obtaining passports, lawyers say there may be some very small exceptions," Iryna Vereshchuk said in a Facebook post. 

But fundamentally, any obtaining by a Ukrainian citizen (regardless of motives) the passport of the aggressor state should be considered a crime," she added. 

Previously, the simplified procedure for obtaining Russian citizenship applied only to residents of DPR and LPR as well as Russian-held Ukrainian regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Iryna Vereshchuk called Russia's decision of issuing passports to people in Ukraine and preparing for referendums "more dangerous" than missiles. Vereshchuk further asserted that Russia wants to conquer the lands of Ukraine and they want to use people living in occupied regions as a "live shield." Earlier, Yevgeny Balitsky, the head of Zaporizhzhia’s pro-Russian military-civilian administration, has said that the referendum on the region's accession to Russia will take place in early autumn this year, TASS reported. He claimed that the people want Zaporizhzhia to become a territorial identity within Russia.

Ukrainian Foreign Ministry strongly condemns Putin's decree on Russian citizenship

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has strongly condemned the decree signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 11 which provides a simplified procedure for the people of Ukraine to obtain Russian citizenship. Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that Ukrainians do not require citizenship from Russia and Putin's attempts to force people "are doomed to fail." He called on Ukraine's partners to respond "strongly" to Russian President Putin's "passport fantasies" by providing more heavy weapons to their nation and imposing sanctions against Russia. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said that Russia has been using a simplified procedure to "tighten the noose around the necks of the residents" of the temporarily occupied regions of Ukraine. 

"I call on our partners to react strongly to Putin’s passport fantasies by supplying Ukraine urgently with more heavy weapons and imposing new economic sanctions on Russia," Ukraine's Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba said in a statement.

Image: AP