Russians who dream of getting a Ukrainian passport

Galina was born in Ukraine, speaks Ukrainian, her husband serves in the Ukrainian army and lives in a village south of the city of Vinnytsia, in central Ukraine.

But in the eyes of the law, Galina is Russian. As a child she moved to Russia, where she later became a citizen.

Like them, thousands of Russians in Ukraine now find themselves in legal limbo.

“If you show your documents, people think you are strange,” she tells me in her kitchen, where she spends her time sewing T-shirts for Ukrainian soldiers wounded in the fight against Russian invaders.

The Ukrainian Migration Service emphasizes that all foreigners in the country have the same rights and that no nationality is discriminated against.

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But some Russians deny this and lawyers advising Russians in Ukraine told the BBC its customers face the possibility of having their accounts frozen.

The National Bank of Ukraine has restricted financial services for all Russian and Belarusian citizens following the February 2022 invasion of the country on orders from Russian President Vladimir Putin, although it says those with residence permits will not be affected by the measure .

That is not Galina’s experience. He says that because of his passport, He cannot get a job and fears his bank account will be frozen.

Because she is seven months pregnant, she does not have access to the healthcare that the state provides for free because she is not a Ukrainian national.

He also fears that he will not be able to register the birth of his son. She says that after meeting Maksym, the Ukrainian with whom she shares her life, in church, officials refused to recognize the union.

“I was told, ‘Come back when you have a passport”, Galina explains. “They don’t understand who I am,” he complains.

Ukrainian law prohibits dual nationality, but in practice some Ukrainians do.

Galina began to apply for Ukrainian citizenship, but could not complete the process due to the beginning of the Russian invasion. Now that his temporary passport has expired, he says he feels ‘a hostage of Russia’.

“Changing passports was already difficult before the war; Now that is impossible,” he says.

An empty embassy

There is a white three-storey building on Povitroflotsky Avenue in the center of Kiev. It is surrounded by a high barbed wire fence and the shutters are completely closed. Weeds grow in a garden that no one cares about anymore.

This concerns the Russian embassy, ​​which has been evacuated since February 23 last year for “security reasons”. A day later, Moscow launched its full-scale invasion and what remained of diplomatic relations with Kiev fell apart.

Since then, thousands of people like Galina have been living in uncertainty.

There are currently more than 150,000 Russians with permanent residence permits in Ukraine. About 17,000 have a temporary permit.

To successfully apply for a Ukrainian passport, they must first physically renounce their Russian citizenship. But the Russian authorities have complicated this process: to do this, they require interested parties to deliver their documents on Russian territory or in a Russian consulate abroad.

Galina has no guarantee that if she tried, she wouldn’t be arrested or stranded outside Ukraine.

When his children return from school, his eyes reveal a fear that he tries to hide from them.

Galina refuses to hold Ukraine responsible for her situation or to claim that she is suffering from discrimination.

He blames Russia and his Russian relatives, who have chosen to support his country in his appeal “special military operation” of what he lives.

“How can I support a thief, a rapist and a murderer who breaks into my house?” he asks.

After Galina ends a video call with her husband Maksym, I ask her what would happen to her family if he died at the front.

He covers his mouth. He has tried to keep that thought in the background.

“It’s very scary” says. “Even if he gets hurt, I wouldn’t be able to visit him in the hospital because we’re not technically married.”

“We are strangers to the rest of the world.”

I chose Ukraine

When Russian Anastasia Leonova moved from Moscow to Kiev in 2015, her friends warned her that “she should not speak Russian” and that “there were only Nazis there.”

They reflected the narrative of Russian propaganda, which she was already bothered by at the time because she had uncles and cousins ​​living in Ukraine.

Anastasia arrived in Ukraine after losing her job in Russia and receiving death threats for her criticism of the annexation of Crimea, ordered by Putin in 2014 but not recognized by the majority of the international community.

When I saw Russian troops moving towards Kiev on February 24 last year, I had only one thought in my mind: stay and fight.

“My blood is partly Ukrainian“, says. “I was born as part of Ukraine.”

“I chose Ukraine as my home country; “I couldn’t betray that choice.”

He volunteered as a combat medic for the Ukrainian forces defending Kiev against his own country’s forces.

I ask her if she is treated differently in Ukraine because she is Russian.

“Nobody asked me for my passport when I was at work,” he says, smiling. She claims to be confident that her colleagues at work know that she is Russian.

He admits that at first it was very difficult for him to treat Russians who were injured in the battle because of what they did, but later, he says, he realized that this was “the way to get back our people, the Ukrainians who had been captured by the Russians”.

“Since my first day here I dreamed of having a Ukrainian passport“, say.

‘That’s why I fight. Not only for freedom, but also for my passport,” he proclaims.

Only a few hundred Russians have obtained Ukrainian citizenship in the 18 months since the invasion began, compared to 1,700 the year before.

Unlike Galina, Anastasia feels like she is closer to realizing her dream. Military service, marriage to a Ukrainian and length of residence are taken into account for citizenship applications. As authorities emphasize, the legal right to reside in Ukraine requires more than just a change of identity.

This war has put thousands of Russians in Ukraine, like Galina and Anastasia, in a difficult position.

The head of the Ukrainian State Migration Service, Natalia Naumenko, told us that no nationality is discriminated against when it comes to obtaining citizenship.

A new law is being drafted that would simplify citizenship and residence permit applications for those fighting for Ukraine.

But Naumenko points out that the process will certainly not be easier for the Russians because of the Russian invasion.

“We have already simplified it for those who fight for Ukraine,” he says.

“Why should Ukraine simplify things for all Russians in general?” he asks. (JO)