Zelenskyy introduces bill on dual citizenship to Parliament
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy (Vitalii Nosach, RBC-Ukraine)
On January 22, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy will submit a bill on multiple citizenship to the Rada. He states it during his congratulations on the Day of Unity.
"Today I am submitting to the Verkhovna Rada a key draft law that will allow the adoption of comprehensive legislative amendments and the introduction of multiple citizenship," he says.
According to Zelenskyy, this will allow all ethnic Ukrainians and their descendants from around the world, except for Russian citizens, to have Ukrainian citizenship.
"All those who, during various emigration waves, were forced to leave their homeland and ended up in Europe, the United States, Canada, countries of Asia and Latin America. All those who help us despite being hundreds and thousands of kilometers away from their homeland. Foreign volunteers who took up arms to defend Ukraine, all those who fight for Ukraine's freedom as if it were their homeland. And Ukraine will become such for them," the President adds.
Multiple citizenship in Ukraine
Multiple citizenship is a citizenship status in which a person is consistently recognized as a citizen of two or more countries under the laws of those countries. However, the Constitution of Ukraine (Article 4) stipulates that there is a single citizenship in Ukraine.
In October 2023, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that it considered it necessary to introduce multiple citizenship in Ukraine. But there should be exceptions to the ban on any dual citizenship with the aggressor state.
Even before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation, the possibility of regulating the issue of multiple citizenship at the legislative level was considered.
