Ketevan Tsikhelashvili, the State Minister for Reconciliation and Civic Equality in Georgia Radio Liberty

The Russian Federation uses the same means of influence in Ukraine as it applied for Georgia as Ministry of Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine reported citing Ketevan Tsikhelashvili, the State Minister for Reconciliation and Civic Equality in Georgia.

She discussed the situation occurred at the temporarily occupied territories due to the simplification of the issuance of Russian citizenship to Donbas people with Minister of Temporarily Occupied Territories Vadym Chernysh.

“In fact, the president of Russia repeated in Ukraine things, which took place in 90s, the beginning of 2000s in Georgia: he started to issue the Russian passports to the people of temporary occupied part of Donbas. Unfortunately, it is very familiar scenario for us and we know to what it provides,” the message said.

According to Tsikhelashvili, it “is very warning sign that Russia is not going to refuse from its policy and a signal to consolidate our efforts and efforts of our international partners to resist the policy of the Russian Federation”.

According to her, the Ukrainian partners also understand that Russia needs such template measures to justify other illegitimate actions under the pretext of the so-called protection of the interests of its citizens.

Vadym Chernysh noted the importance of the Georgian experience for the prediction of the further steps of the Russian Federation and to counteract them.

According to the minister, the issuance of the passports will not influence the social and economic state of the occupied territories and will not improve the well-being of the population.

He added that the ministry prepares the number of the offers to change the legislation on the non-recognition of particular documents by Ukraine.

On May 1, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree granting the right to a simplified procedure for obtaining Russian citizenship to certain categories of citizens of Ukraine.

On April 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree according to which the procedure for obtaining Russian citizenship for residents of Donetsk and Luhansk regions is simplified. Applications for entry into citizenship of the Russian Federation, which are received from residents of ORDLO, should be considered no more than three months from the date of submission.

President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky stated that Ukraine will grant citizenship to representatives of all peoples suffering from authoritarian and corrupt regimes, and first of all to Russians.

Besides, he said that Russia should not spend their time in vain with their attempts to lure the citizens of Ukraine into getting Russian passports.

Current President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko stated that the order on the issuance of the Russian passports to the Ukrainian citizens on the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk is the attempt to justify and legitimize the military presence of Russia in Donbas.

Ukraine appealed to the UN Security Council after this decision and Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the UN Volodymyr Yelchenko called it to be the daring step, which contradicts the Minsk Agreements.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Temporarily Occupied Territories and IDPs reported that people who get Russian passports will lose their Ukrainian citizenship.