On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin extended a fast-track process to obtaining Russian citizenship for all Ukrainians.
A decree signed by Putin says residents of Ukraine and the breakaway Donbas republics “are entitled to appeal for admission to citizenship of the Russian Federation via simplified procedure.”
The decree makes it so that Ukrainians no longer need to meet a series of preconditions to obtain Russian passports, such as taking a Russian language test and living in Russia for five years.
Russia first applied the simplified citizenship process to the Donestk and Luhansk oblasts in the Donbas in 2019. In May, Putin extended the waiver to the southeastern oblasts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, both of which are now mostly controlled by Russia.
According to the UN, over 1.5 million Ukrainians have fled to Russia since Putin launched the invasion on February 24. The decree gives the Ukrainians that have fled to Russia the option of staying regardless of what region they came from.
Ukrainian officials slammed Putin’s move and have accused Russia of forcing Ukrainians to flee to Russian territory. “The purpose of this criminal policy is not just to steal people, but to make those who are deported forget about Ukraine and unable to return,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Putin’s decree is also being taken as a signal that the Russian leader is planning to annex Ukrainian territory. Russian-installed officials in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia have both said they’re considering holding a referendum on joining Russia.
So far, over 900,000 took advantage of the process and over 700,000 already cutizens. Zelenski is spinning a stupid tale. No persin can be made by force to apply for citizenship. And now that opportunity is given to anyone in Ukraine, it will become clearer what is going on. With over 1.5 milion of Ukrainian refugees in Russia, it is obvious that Russia has no means of coercion. Numbers are not reliable, as ever since 2014 coup Ukrainians not just Russians but Ukrainians as
welll sought to escape the chaos of liberal plunder of economy. They sought employment as Ukrainian economy imploded.
It is clear now with tge benefit of hindsight to see why there was no desire to implement Minsk. Simmering conflict with Moscow was a cinvenient excuse for tanking economy. And with Zelensky coming to power, a more ambitious agenda developed in Washington. An agenda of using conflicted and disgruntled
Ukranian population as disposable masses to provoke conflict with Russia. Circumstances made the goal realistic. With the Western Galician Nazi revivalist holding power sunce 2014, and a globalist president with no loyalty to any constituency — political situation became ideal. The pretense of caring for the plight of Donbas got him elected. His real lack of care made him the most despised person in the country in acvery short time. This was a perfect storm. US desire to weaken Russia. Zelenski’s link with wealthy Zionists, and deteriorating economic and security situation -/ had to and in drawing Russia into conflict.
The objecctive of corralling Europe into unifiued anti-Russia stand was not hard — NATO mechanism assured the outcome.
But beyond this — it was less clear what escallatiin steps are. Russia is using a fraction of force. And escallation is still not under way. Lithuanian gambit is perhaps an escallation, but not a serious ine. Globally West has lost the narrative, and even lost the plot domestically. Sanctions have backfired, European economies in crisis. Johnson in UK is the first casualty. American political instability and overarching focus on Ukraine as a bipartisan project is unnerving to allies.
It is just the beginning.
1.5 Million Ukrainians have fled to Russia.
Yes, they are mainly from the Donbas region (Russian separatists, 2nd/3rd generation Russians, Ukrainian with Russian families etc. I think we know who is fleeing to Russia and/or getting Russian passports.
In 2014, Kiev should have let those Russian-speaking Ukrainians keep their language, and should have granted partial autonomy to those regions instead of shelling them for 8 years, killing “his own people” They also should have adhered to the Minsk Accords sponsored by France/Germany, that they signed on to.
The Ukrainian regime should have done all the things you say. But the fact that they didn’t does not justify Russia’s war of aggression.
War is the worst thing humans do. The only thing that justifies war between nations is self defense or acting to stop an actual or imminent holocaust level genocide. Most wars have just causes. But the consequences of war are almost always worse than the casus belli. Putin’s war against Ukraine is a greater human tragedy than Ukraine’s depredations in the Donbas. And Putin’s war has predictably united Ukrainians in a nationalist opposition movement rooted in Ukraine’s historic oppression by Russia. The Ukrainian army is hopelessly outmatched by the Russian military. But Russia will not be able to pacify Donbas or defeat the resistance movement Putin’s ill advised war of aggression engendered.
Correct our own mistakes first, with our wars of aggression against Vietnam, Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria and stop laying the groundwork for more of our wars of aggression.
Let’s just let China and/or Russia overthrow the Mexican or Canadian democratically elected government, and pour weapons in there and see if you would call our sure military actions in response – A WAR OF AGGRESSION.
We were on the threshold of starting a WAR OF AGGRESSION with the Soviet Union when they were putting weapons in Cuba.
See how that “rules based order” works? Condone all of our actions because we’re arrogant enough to believe we are special and get to make all the rules for everyone.
Wars of aggression are wrong. That goes for US, Russia,Nazi Germany, Saddam’s Iraq, etc. Putin was wrong to attack a country that had not attacked Russia.
Ukraine was a security threat to Russia. That did not justify a war any more than the US would be justified in invading Cuba because it aligned with the USSR.
Russia forced to play by OUR same rules based order. Some would call that a war of aggression, where others call it a war in defense of the continuity of the Russian State. The difference is that our (the West’s) wars in those places mentioned were not an existential threat to NATO or the United States.
Russia is no less expansionist than the UK, the US or NATO. They just lost out like Germany, Japan and Italy before WWI. Like the Axis, Russia is trying to preserve and extend its power by wars of aggression. NATO is worse than Russia like the UK was worse than Germany. But war is worse than NATO. The two world wars led to a consensus among the human race that war is an evil that is almost never worth the cost. US/NATO benefit from preserving the world order. But everyone, including the Russian people, lose from war, especially when great powers are involved.
We really, really wanted to, even considered a false flag to get it going. Operation Northwoods.
If, Russia should return to Cuba,plant missiles there, what then? Cuba is off the coast of Florida. Ukraine is right on the border with Russia.
Russian subs are already in range of the East and West Coasts. If Cuba invites the Russians back, the US would not be justified in invading.
Absolutely correct. Zelensky when he came into power in 2009 promised to abide by the Minsk Agreements, but shortly after reneged on his promise, most likely at the behest of the US. By the way Russia was not a signatory of the Minsk Agreements, which was brokered by Germany and France (the Normandy format) and signed by Ukraine, Germany and France.
Zelensky came to power in 2019.
And Russia is a signatory to both the Minsk Agreements.
You are right about Zelensky coming to power in 2019. (Printing errror). Russia however is not a signatory to the Minsk Agreements.
For the love of Pete, all you have to do is look up the damn agreements to see that Russia is signatory to, and a guarantor of, both of them. Both Minsk agreements were signed on behalf of Russia by Russia’s ambassador to Ukraine, Mikhail Zurabov.
Then why did Ukraine not abide by the agreements?
I must concede you are right Thomas. Russia indeed is a signatory of the Minsk Agreement. Thanks for putingg me on the right track.
Yes, and Ukraine did not abide by the agreements.
Oh the playbook answer everyone uses here to anything they don’t like.
Let’s talk about the event of 2014 (Maidan)
1. 2013, Democratically elected President Yanukovich is about to sign the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement. An economic agreement with the EU aimed to help Ukraine expand its import/export of goods.
2. Putin was against it so it started to cut off Natural Gas supply to punish Ukraine and this continued into the winter months.
3. When this failed to pesuade Yanukovich, Putin offered to reduce cost of Natural Gas and gave Yanukovich a 15 billion bailout.
4. Yanukovich takes the money then chooses to not sign the agreement fully supported and wanted by the people of Ukraine.
5. Ukrainians revolted in protest because they wanted to open up to West and not be sold to Russia.
6. Putin then takes Crimea by Force (yes, by Force).
7. Putin, asks the Russian separatists of Donbas to rebel and take as much land as possible with the promise that he would provide full support.
8. This was in direct violation of the BUDAPEST MEMORANDUM of 1994 which Russia as a signatory, guaranteed that Ukraine would keep its territorial integrity in exchange for returning the Nuclear arsenal back the Russia and if ever violated, UK and US (signatories) would provide economic and military assistance to Ukraine.
You want to talk about the Minsk agreement as if Russia didn’t violated that as well. And Ukraine killing its own people during 8 years? Research that, because that’s is NOT a fact.
EDIT: Now watch how many dislikes I get for being the minority in this blog.
In any case none of our business and an internal matter between Ukraine and Russia.
How do you think we keep all of our allies in check? Because they so love us or because we pay off their leaders, and use our economic power to coerce them and to foil our made-up “adversaries”, or as the jargon calls them, “our competitors”.
In any case, the democratically elected leader BY ALL OF UKRAINE, had the authority to make whatever decision he wanted to, and because he didn’t do what the foreign instigator (us) wanted, we planned, instigated, and helped the violent overthrow of that (TRUMPETS PLEASE) “SACRED DEMOCRACY”.
Putin DID NOT, repeat DID NOT take Crimea by force. The people of Crimea spoke and speak Russian and they wanted no part of nazi-inspired regime in Kiev that we thought we were going to hoist on them. Furthermore, Russia had a very long term lease on Crimean Naval facilities and didn’t need any force in Crimea, just like we don’t need any force in Cuba with our similar Guantanamo leased military base.
There is no evidence whatever that Cremians resisted the Russians. There had been a Russian garrison in Cremia since 1953 when Krutchev (a Ukrainian himself) handed Cremia over to SR Ukraine. East Ukrainians resisted the Kiev coup since 2014 at a cost of 14000 killed over those eight years. That are the indisputable facts.
On 1 April 2014 Gazprom cancelled Ukraine’s natural gas discount as agreed in the 17 December 2013 Ukrainian–Russian action plan because its debt to the company had risen to $1.7 billion since 2013.
And that was after our coup, so get your facts straight.
Russia always had control of THEIR nuclear arsenal in Ukraine, just like the US has control over all of our nukes anywhere in the world where they are. They were never Ukraine’s nuclear weapons.
Yep, another convenient Kremlin claim when they knew a new West friendly President would be elected.
Russia did not have control over the Nukes and nothing after the Soviet Union collapsed. Yeltsin told all the republics to keep their territories, industries, hardware and other goods. The newly formed Federation of Russia decided to at least recover the Nukes outside their borders to prevent Nuclear Proliferation under and newly signed agreement that guarantee sovereignty of its neighbors (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine and others) in return. hence the Budapest Memorandum.
Russia would have destroyed THEIR nukes in Ukraine before granting statehood. And, a Ukrainian government never had operational control to be able to do anything with those nukes.
Just plain let them be.
It’s a safe alternative and smart way of voting that cannot be rigged. Most Ukrainians have not forgotten their ancestors fought in the Red Army against Nazi Germany. Ukraine has been part of Russia for hundred of years.
Read about the Trawniki men from Ukraine. As guards and operators of the gas chambers, they helped the NAZIs with the Final Solution.
In fairness, many Russians too collaborated with the Nazis. You can also read about it… or keep yours readings within your anti Ukraine Narrative.
Russians were machine gunned down from behind the lines to make sure they didn’t retreat.
In fairness, there is very little instances of Russians collaborating the with the Nazis. Nothing like the Central Europeans, including Ukraine, and Croatia and the Lithuanians.
Or, Prescott Bush doing business with the NAZIs almost right up to when we entered the war.
Read about the Holomordor the Ukrainians had reasons to aid the Nazis enemy of my enemy etc
Ukraine has also not forgotten that Stalin starved 3.9 Million Ukrainians and that Russia has historically abused them. And now, once again, the Red Army is destroying and taking their land.
and the Poles don’t forget the genocidal massacres the German collaborating Ukrainians foisted on them.
How far you want to go back with your historical hatred. By your reckoning we should be fighting the Japanese and Germans, still. And throw in the Vietnamese for good measure too.
And Stalin was a Georgian, not a Russian.
History provides the root cause of the present problem set. But you can conveniently choose to ignore the past and just work from 2014 forward.
Oh, and Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922–1952) and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (1941–1953). Yes, Geogia was part of the CCCP and Stalin was surrounded by Russian pals.
Let’s go back to the genocide of the Neanderthals if you want to go way back to the root.
No worries, I’ll call you out next time you conveniently pull the past.
Well thank you. Always here for your information font.
And now it is not and it looks like a bunch of Ukrainians want it to remain outside of Russia. War as a way of resolving issues should be obsolete. Do the Russians have a valid claim on Alaska?
Oh look, tons of Ukrainians actually want to join “evil” Russian “invaders.” Why can’t mainstream media report without bias rather than be an echo chamber of the White House and the military industrial complex?
That’s not how ‘the game’ is played…
Yep put a gun to somebodies head and see how quickly they fill out the forms.
Putin is merely simplifying the process of reducing Ukraine back to the status of – as the name says – “the Russian border lands”. Whether “Ukraine” as an independent state exists at the end of the war is debatable. In any case, Russia will ensure a pro-Russian, anti-NATO government in Ukraine – whether it be a Ukrainian government or the Russian government itself.
Ukraine chose to persecute alienate and subjugate Ethnic Russian Ukrainian Citizens. Russia is reversing then policy..
The implicit aim of democracy: “protecting the weak from the powerful.”