In recent years, after the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has significantly tightened its legislation on migration and citizenship, and some innovations create an immediate risk of statelessness.
The long-standing problem of statelessness is rooted in the events of the collapse of the USSR, related border changes, and the emerging sovereignty of post-Soviet countries.
In April 2023, a new version of the Law on Citizenship of the Russian Federation was adopted. According to authoritative experts, the consequences of the law in its current form will be ambiguous: some groups of stateless people have retained or received preferences in access to Russian citizenship, while others have lost their existing advantages, and the logic of legislators is unclear. The most vulnerable stateless people are citizens of the former USSR without valid documents, whose problems were addressed in a separate chapter in the old version of the law.
The new version, however, deprives them of their former benefits in law and in practice (the "simplified procedure" for obtaining citizenship); now they can only follow the long and thorny path of the "general procedure" for applying for citizenship. Elena Burtina, expert of the Civil Assistance Committee, concludes that "the bulk of stateless citizens of the former USSR are de facto deprived of the prospects of obtaining citizenship."
Innovations related to the deprivation of acquired citizenship have negative consequences. Article 22 of the Law on Citizenship in the 2017 version, "Grounds for the cancellation of decisions on citizenship of the Russian Federation", has already caused human rights defenders to sound the alarm. It states that acquired citizenship can be revoked if the applicant has provided false information / forged documents (Part 1 of Article 22); or for a conviction for crimes related to "terrorist" and "extremist" matters (Part 2 of Article 22).
In 2021, the legitimacy of Part 2 of Article 22 was unfortunately confirmed by the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation. The aforementioned new version of the Law on Citizenship of the Russian Federation (April 2023) significantly expands the grounds for deprivation of citizenship under Chapter 4, which include “the communication of deliberately false information […] expressed in the commission of a crime (preparation for a crime or attempted crime)”, “committing actions that pose a threat to the national security of the Russian Federation”, and “failure to fulfill the obligation to initially register for military service”.
In the first six months of the new version of the Law on Citizenship of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia terminated the acquired Russian citizenship of 398 people because of the crimes they committed. In the period from January to July 2024, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia deprived about 1000 people of citizenship for the same reason.
Citizenship in a war situation is an instrument of blackmail and intimidation
Since the beginning of Russia's invasion in Ukraine, many naturalized citizens of the Russian Federation – recent migrant workers - regretted that they acquired Russian citizenship: instead of protection, it promises them the risk of being killed in the war.
The recruitment of recent migrants with acquired Russian citizenship began immediately after the outbreak of the war. Foreigners who have received Russian citizenship are required to serve in the Russian armed forces, even if they have already served in their native countries. The only exceptions are citizens of Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, as Russia has signed relevant agreements with these countries.
After the outbreak of war, representatives of the Ministry of Defense began calling natives of Central Asia with Russian citizenship, both young and older than military age, threatening to take away their acquired citizenship in case of evasion from service.
Deprivation of citizenship for “non-registration for military service”, or other violations of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (desertion, voluntary surrender, discrediting the army) are directed against anti-war minded naturalised citizens and aim to drive migrants and Russian citizens into the Russian army, and to suppress dissent.
Those who were just planning to obtain Russian citizenship were also lured into the army, through targeted advertisements in Russia and Central Asia, the promise of a good salary, and simplified citizenship processes.
Not only recent citizens of the Russian Federation are forced to serve in the Russian army, but also migrants serving sentences in Russian prisons. At the same time, foreign prisoners report that they are being persuaded to deny the citizenship of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, apply for Russian citizenship and sign a contract with the Russian army (appeal of prisoners from a colony near Moscow, a publication of "Current Time", October 14, 2024).
After the mobilization was announced (autumn 2022), media reports appeared that migrants from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan working in the Russian Federation began to receive summonses, despite the fact that they did not have Russian citizenship. And the Moscow authorities have opened a recruitment center on the basis of the Sakharovo migration center.
At the beginning of 2023, cases of bans on leaving the Russian Federation for natives of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan with Russian passports became known. They were informed that they were on the mobilization lists and for this reason could not leave the territory of Russia.
Gains and losses in the struggle for the rights of stateless people and migrants
Russia is currently experiencing a shortage of migrant workers, but has ramped up its anti-migrant legislation and rhetoric. Against the background of the war, anti-migrant hysteria, stricter migration legislation, and the adoption and application of laws that directly lead to statelessness, Russia risks undoing progress on migrant and stateless people’s rights, including the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) landmark decision in Kim v. Russia, the implementation of which took nearly 10 years.
In the case of Roman Kim (2014) – a stateless person, ethnic Korean, native of Uzbekistan – was ordered him to be expelled by the Russian court for violating migration legislation. He was detained indefinitely in a detention center, where he spent more than two years. The ECHR considered this a violation of a number of articles of the European Convention and, in addition to monetary compensation for Kim, ordered Russia to take measures to ensure that expulsion would not be applied to stateless people, so that judicial control over the legality and duration of detention in deportation centers would be introduced, and this period itself is limited to ensure that stateless people receive documents allowing them to legally live and work in the Russian Federation.
The Russian government has long sabotaged the implementation of the ECHR decision in the Kim case – it took a lot of work by lawyers and human rights defenders to ensure it was upheld. The procedure for the legalization of stateless people started working only in 2021. Now stateless people can obtain an identity card for 10 years for a limited time, and legally live and work in Russia.
In 2023, Russia finally introduced a rule on limiting detention in the Central Prison for a period of no more than 90 days and judicial control over the extension of this period (no more than 90 days). In their turn, detainees can apply for expulsion at their own expense – and the court is obliged to consider such a request within 5 days. Even more importantly, the law explicitly points to the right of people placed in the detention centers to apply to the court to verify the legality of their deprivation of liberty “in the presence of circumstances indicating the absence of an actual possibility of expulsion from the Russian Federation.”
However, another tightening of migration legislation in matters of expulsion has significantly expanded the powers of the police. If so far only the court has taken decisions on expulsion, then amendments to the Administrative Code, which will enter into force in January 2025, have given the Interior Ministry (police) the right to make such decisions. It can be predicted that their appeal to the courts (according to the law, possible within 10 days after receiving of the decisions) will be difficult: the expulsion order may be executed immediately, and the foreigner may simply not have the opportunity to go to court.
It is clear that Russia's war in Ukraine will have far-reaching implications for stateless people and could undo any achievements for stateless rights in the country.
