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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Foreign contract soldiers of the RF Armed Forces can become Russians |
| 2024-01-05 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. [Regnum] Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on granting Russian citizenship to foreigners who have entered into a contract for military service in the Russian Armed Forces, and members of their families. The text of the document is published on the legal information website. According to the decree, foreigners who entered into a contract with the Russian Armed Forces during a special military operation will be able to apply for Russian citizenship. “To establish that foreign citizens who entered into a contract for military service in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation or military formations during a special military operation have the right to apply for citizenship of the Russian Federation <...>,” the document says. Foreign citizens who were dismissed from military service in the Russian Armed Forces during the SVO period for health reasons, upon reaching the age limit, upon expiration of the contract, or due to the termination of martial law will be able to submit an application. In addition, relatives of these categories of foreign citizens will also have the right to obtain Russian citizenship. DECREE ON A SIMPLIFIED PROCEDURE FOR OBTAINING RUSSIAN CITIZENSHIP The new decree cancels the presidential decree of September 30, 2022 on a simplified procedure for granting Russian citizenship to foreigners who entered military service in the Russian Armed Forces under a contract. Then, according to the document, in order to obtain Russian citizenship in a simplified manner, a foreign citizen or stateless person had to participate in hostilities for at least six months, or suffer injury or injury that would not allow him to continue military service. Their spouses, children or parents had the right to make a similar application. OTHER CONCESSIONS FOR FOREIGN CONTRACT WORKERS In July 2023, the State Duma adopted an amendment on the right of foreigners to enter into a contract to stay in the reserve without access to state secrets. The lower house of parliament supported the amendment on the right of reserve military personnel with senior officer ranks to enter into a contract to remain in the reserve for the first time and on the right of foreigners to enter into a contract to remain in the reserve without access to state secrets. As the authors of the innovation noted, this will allow citizens living in Crimea, Sevastopol and other Russian regions who have Ukrainian citizenship, which has not been terminated for reasons beyond their control, to join the reserve. In addition, the new amendment supplemented the law with a new article establishing cases of suspension of a citizen’s stay in the reserve. Solving the problem with “mercenarism” According to State Duma deputy Alexander Khinshtein, the new decree will solve the problem of extraditing special operation veterans to foreign states for “mercenarism.” Before this, there were cases where foreigners who had dual citizenship, but served in the Northern Military District, were subject to criminal prosecution in their homeland. Thus, on November 29, a Karaganda court sentenced a veteran of the Russian special operation, a participant in the battles for Artyomovsk, Kazakh citizen Alexey Shompolov to 6 years and 8 months in prison. In addition, at the end of October, one of the Tashkent courts sentenced Uzbek citizen Ildar Khairulin to five years in prison for participating in hostilities in 2014–2015 on the side of the DPR. MIGRANTS AND SERVICE IN THE RUSSIAN ARMED FORCES In June 2023, the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov noted an increase in the number of people wishing to serve under contract in the Russian army. He regarded this as an extremely positive development. Despite this, by the end of 2023, 52 criminal cases were opened in Moscow against “naturalized citizens”—people who came from abroad and received Russian passports—for evading military service. In turn, in August last year, a deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Mikhail Matveev, introduced a bill to the State Duma that would involve depriving acquired Russian citizenship if a person has not registered with the military. According to the first deputy head of the A Just Russia faction, Dmitry Gusev, it is necessary not to deprive someone of citizenship if he did not serve or shirked, and not to give citizenship without the obligation to serve in the army. |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #3 So, they're mobilizing Snowden? |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2024-01-05 13:15 |
| #2 |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2024-01-05 07:01 |
| #1 Remember reading somewhere that, at the time of Peter the Great, a third of Russia's noble houses traced their descent to Tatar nobles who accept service under Moscow's Princes. |
| Posted by: Grom the Reflective 2024-01-05 04:53 |