Recent years have seen both gains and losses for the protection of stateless people and prevention of statelessness in Russia. In 2023, after many years of advocacy following the 2014 ECtHR Kim v Russia case, a judgment requiring judicial oversight to prevent arbitrary detention of stateless people was implemented.
Unfortunately, particularly since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, there has also been backsliding, as Russia has significantly tightened its legislation on migration and citizenship, in some cases increasing the risk of statelessness.
Changes to the Law on Citizenship
One of the major historic causes of statelessness in Europe is the collapse of the USSR, related border changes, and the emerging sovereignty of post-Soviet countries. Still today, the most vulnerable stateless people in Russia, as well as in other former Soviet States, are former citizens of the USSR without valid documents. The history of Russian legislation on citizenship in the post-Soviet period and its systemic problems has been analysed in detail in the ADC Memorial report “Violations of the Rights of Stateless Persons and Foreign Citizens in Light of the ECHR Judgment in “Kim v. Russia” (2014).
In April 2023, a new version of the Law on Citizenship of the Russian Federation was adopted. 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 new version deprives the most vulnerable group of stateless people in Russia of their former benefits in law and in practice (the "simplified procedure" for obtaining citizenship, according to former chapter VIII.1 of the Law). 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." The amended law also increases the risk of statelessness given the extent of new grounds for deprivation of citizenship.
According to the new Law on Citizenship, the grounds for deprivation of citizenship are formulated as follows (Article 22):
- the communication of deliberately false information regarding the obligation to comply with the Constitution of the Russian Federation and the legislation of the Russian Federation, expressed in particular:
- in the commission of a crime (preparation for a crime or attempted crime);
- in committing actions that pose a threat to the national security of the Russian Federation; failure to fulfill the obligation to initially register for military service (which was added in the wording of Federal Law No. 281-FZ on 8 August 2024).
- submission of forged or invalid documents or reported knowingly false information on the basis of which a decision was made on admission to citizenship of the Russian Federation or a decision on recognition as a citizen of the Russian Federation;
- other grounds provided for by an international treaty of the Russian Federation providing an opportunity to retain or change citizenship.
The other articles of the amended Law specify the list of 64 articles of the Criminal Code, which, with the related sentences, serve as the basis for deprivation of citizenship. It is indicated that the decision to deprive citizenship is made regardless of the time of the crime, the date of the court verdict and the date of the decision on admission to citizenship of the Russian Federation (Article 24), that may cover the expunged criminal record. Article 25 speaks about such grounds for deprivation of citizenship as “committing actions that pose a threat to the national security of the Russian Federation.”
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 due to 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.
Instrumentalisation of citizenship in a war situation
In a war context, provisions for the deprivation of citizenship relating to such grounds as circulation of false information, actions posing a threat to national security, and failure to register for military service become more concerning and increase the risk of citizenship being instrumentalised. In addition to controversial citizenship law amendments, Russia’s migration policy in recent decades has also been controversial. On the one hand, the country is experiencing a labour shortage, particularly in employment sectors (e.g. construction, transport, utilities) dominated by migrant workers. On the other hand, the Russian authorities have ramped up their anti-migrant rhetoric and are seeking to limit immigration through increasingly restrictive migration policies. Illustrative of this, for example, is that in the first six months of 2024, 124,000 administrative cases of violation of migration rules were submitted to the courts, which is nearly as many as for the whole of 2022.
So why, despite the risks, do migrants continue to go to Russia to work and seek to obtain Russian citizenship? Inter alia, in order to avoid bureaucratic procedures and related costs, but probably the main motivation is the need to look for sufficient income in a more economically developed country to support their family. There are other motives: for example, for representatives of vulnerable minorities, labour migration to Russia is often the only way to avoid physical danger and repression in the country of origin (for example, Uzbeks from Southern Kyrgyzstan or Pamiris from Tajikistan). However, after the beginning of Russia’s invasion in Ukraine, it is reported that many naturalised citizens of the Russian Federation – recent migrant workers in particular - regretted that they acquired Russian citizenship: instead of protection, it promised them the risk to be killed in the war.
After the outbreak of war, there were reports that representatives of the Ministry of Defense began proactively calling migrants from 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. 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 renounce the citizenship of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, apply for Russian citizenship, and sign a contract with the Russian army.
Such grounds for deprivation of citizenship outlined above as “non-registration for military service”, as well as some other violations of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation – for example, “desertion”, “voluntary surrender”, “discrediting the army”- are intrinsically linked to the war, on the one hand, driving newly naturalised migrants into the Russian army, whilst on the other suppressing dissent and preventing anti-war protest.
Such policies could lead to an increased risk of statelessness if individuals have had to renounce a former citizenship in order to naturalise as Russian or in case of vulnerable migrants unwilling or unable to return to countries of origin or former residence, or who may be unable to reacquire a previous citizenship.
Stateless migrants’ rights in the balance
Against the backdrop of the war, this increase in anti-migrant discourse and more restrictive migration legislation could undo recent progress on migrant and stateless people’s rights, including implementation of the 2014 ECHR landmark decision in Kim v. Russia (a case concerning a stateless ethnic minority migrant detained indefinitely for over two years), which was finally achieved in 2023.
The Russian authorities have long resisted 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. Nonetheless, positively, a new procedure to determine statelessness was finally introduced and operationalised in 2021. Now stateless people can be formally recognised and obtain an identity card for 10 years, as well as legally live and work in Russia.
In 2023, Russia also finally introduced a rule on limiting detention in migration detention facilities for a period of no more than 90 days and judicial control over the extension of this period (no more than 90 days). Detainees can also apply for expulsion at their own expense and the court is obliged to consider such a request within five days. Even more importantly, the law explicitly points to the right of people placed in the detention centres 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 a decision) will be difficult: the expulsion order may be executed immediately, and the individual concerned may simply not have the opportunity to go to court. This could risk undoing the hard-earned progress of the last ten years.
It is clear that we must remain vigilant and keep up the struggle for the rights of stateless people to ensure that law, policy, and practice in the Russian Federation relating to the prevention of statelessness does not backslide. This work is ever-more pressing in the current war context.
This article was revised 05/02/2025.
