President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that on January 22, he will introduce a bill on introducing multiple citizenship in Ukraine to the parliament.
What Zelenskyy said about the new draft law
Zelenskyy said this during his address on the Day of Unity.
Today, I am submitting a key bill to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, which will enable the adoption of complex changes to the legislation and the introduction of the institution of multiple citizenship, he said.
According to Zelenskyy, this will make it possible for all ethnic Ukrainians and their descendants from different countries of the world to have Ukrainian citizenship, except for citizens of Russia.
All those who, during the periods of various waves of emigration, were forced to leave their native land, ending up in Europe, the USA, Canada, Asian countries, and Latin America. All those who help us despite hundreds and thousands of kilometers from their native land. Foreign volunteers who came to the defense of Ukraine, all those who fight for the freedom of Ukraine, as for their native Motherland. And Ukraine will become that for them, the president added.
He added that Ukrainians are fighting for the right to be Ukrainians. And the corresponding decision is one of the elements of such freedom, one of the possibilities of realising such a right—the right to be a Ukrainian.
Multiple citizenship in Ukraine
Multiple citizenship is a status in which a person is consistently recognised as a citizen of two or more countries according to the laws of these countries. However, Article 4 of Ukraine's Constitution establishes a single citizenship in Ukraine.
In October 2023, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that they consider it necessary to introduce multiple citizenship in Ukraine. But there should be exceptions to the ban on any dual citizenship with an aggressor state.
Even before the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation, Ukraine considered the possibility of settling the issue of multiple citizenship at the legislative level.
In December 2021, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy submitted a bill on multiple citizenship to the Verkhovna Rada, but the document was never considered.
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