Citizens of Ukraine, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Armenia received Russian citizenship more often than others in 2020. This was reported on April 2 by RT with reference to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia.
Olga Chudinovskikh, head of the laboratory of population economics and demography at the Faculty of Economics at Moscow State University, said that these states had previously been among the leaders.
“If you look at migration flows, the number of arrivals for permanent residence, the number of those who first received a temporary residence permit, then a residence permit – in general, approximately the same countries are among the leaders,” she said.
Chudinovskikh noted that there is a certain specificity in relation to Ukraine, since 2019 amendments to the law on citizenship have been adopted in accordance with presidential decrees on granting citizenship for humanitarian purposes.
According to the expert, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Tajikistan have always been in the top five “main suppliers of new citizens.”
“But these are people who moved to Russia, lived for some time with a permit for a temporary experience, by a residence permit, work here, pay taxes and on this basis receive citizenship,” Chudinovskikh added.
According to the statistics of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in the first two months of this year, almost 100 thousand foreign citizens and stateless persons were accepted into Russian citizenship. For the same period in 2020 – over 107 thousand people.
On February 1, it was reported that Russia broke the 15-year-old record for the number of new citizens. Over 656 thousand foreigners received Russian passports in 2020. Most of the foreigners who received a Russian passport turned out to be among the Ukrainians – 62.4%. Passports were issued by 63 thousand Tajiks and 43 thousand Kazakhs. Also, Americans, Germans, British, Canadians, seven Swiss and one Japanese became citizens of Russia.