Ukrainian - Russian relations

Ukrainian authorities are willing to put their citizens in jail for 10 years for Russian passportВласти Украины готовы посадить своих граждан на 10 лет за паспорт РФ

The Verkhovna Rada will consider the bill on criminal liability for dual citizenship after the normalization of the situation in the country

Izvestia,

3 March, 2014

Ukrainian MPs are ready to make a bill that provides a 10-year prison sentence against Ukrainian citizens receiving a second nationality. document was submitted to the Verkhovna Rada in early February by deputies from the faction Fatherland Brigintsa Alexander, Leonid Emetc and Andrei Pavlovskim.Avtory bill has not yet considered necessary to withdraw the bill and hope to do it after the military conflict with Russia. Political analysts believe that the introduction of anti-people laws - a consequence of the uncertainty of the new authorities in their abilities and lack of popular support among the population.

One of the authors of the bill, deputy Alexander Briginets told "Izvestia" that all decisions on the bill will take place after the complete withdrawal of Russian troops from the territory of Ukraine.

- We really have such a bill. At the same time, now, with the threat of war, no bills Verkhovna Rada will not accept. When normalized situation and disappear military threat, then we will return to this issue - said the MP. - At the same time, decision-making, we will consult with all regions of the country and together define what we do with the holders of dual citizenship.

In this case, the deputy Brygynets not comment on the situation to simplify obtaining Russian citizenship Ukrainian residents.

According to the Ukrainian parliament tabled document, Ukrainian citizens will also receive RF passport, faces a sentence of substantial fines and imprisonment ranging from 3 to 10 years.

Immediately after the coup Verkhovna Rada managed to pass a bill to abolish Russian as a language of regional communication.

Head of the Legal Service of the CPRF faction in the State Duma Vadim Solovyov told "Izvestia" that the authors of the bill criminalizing there are some problems in its adoption and that is why they are not now they do.

- They wrote the bill, and now postpone it indefinitely. Reasons for which they are staying in the adoption of new laws that Yanukovych, they want to or not, is the current president of Ukraine and will not sign these documents - said the deputy. - They can take a bill in parliament to rivet a hundred such projects, but without the signature of the president they will not have any legal consequences.

The Director-General of the political conjuncture Sergei Mikheyev said that Ukraine now anarchy reigns and opposition politicians themselves are in a state of panic.

- Now they certainly can not take anything, because they're not feel any power in his hands. In the minds of these politicians who revolutionized full panic, and they do not know what to do, cause whether the adoption of such a law have consequences. And it certainly will cause consequences, so long as they and their proposals otkadyvayut - said Mikheyev. - At the same time, they do not stop to intimidate society some penalties and sanctions.

On Friday, the State Duma a bill was introduced by the representative of the Social Revolutionary faction, on simplification obtain Russian citizenship Ukrainians. According to him, the Ukrainians will be able to obtain Russian passports without state duty and long stays in the territory of the Russian Federation. At the same time, Russian Consulate General in Simferopol has already started issuing passports of the Russian Federation, which became the first holders of special forces fighters "Berkut".

675,000 Ukrainians pour into Russia as ‘humanitarian crisis’ looms

An estimated 675,000 Ukrainians left for Russia in January and February, fearing the “revolutionary chaos” brewing in Ukraine, Russia's Federal Border Guard Service said. Officials fear a growing humanitarian crisis.

RT,

2 March, 2014

On Sunday, the border guard service said Russian authorities have identified definite signs that a “humanitarian catastrophe” is brewing in Ukraine.

“In just the past two months (January-February) of this year…675,000 Ukrainian citizens have entered Russian territory,” Itar-Tass news agency cited the service as saying.

"If 'revolutionary chaos' in Ukraine continues, hundreds of thousands of refugees will flow into bordering Russian regions," the statement read.

Ukrainians have long formed a large presence in Russia. According to the official 2010 census, 1.9 million Ukrainians were officially living in Russia, although the head of the Federal Migration Service put that figure as high as 3.5 million one year before. While those migrants were often prompted by economic concerns, political turmoil has spiked the recent rise in Ukrainian’s attempting to leave the country.

On Saturday, Russian migration authorities reported that 143,000 requests for asylum had been sent to Russia within a two-week period. Russian officials have promised to expedite the processing of those requests.

“Tragic events in Ukraine have caused a sharp spike in requests coming from this country seeking asylum in Russia,” said the chief of the FMS’s citizenship desk, Valentina Kazakova. “We monitor figures daily and they are far from comforting. Over the last two weeks of February, some 143,000 people applied.”

Kazakova said most requests come from the areas bordering Russia, and especially from Ukraine’s south.

“People are lost, scared and depressed,” she said. “There are many requests from law enforcement services, state officials as they are wary of possible lynching on behalf of radicalized armed groups.”

A week after the government of Viktor Yanukovich was toppled by violent street protests, fears of deepening political and social strife have been particularly acute in Ukraine’s country's pro-Russian east and south.

Soon after Yanukovich opted to flee the country in what he branded as an extremist coup, a newly reconfigured parliament did away with a 2012 law on minority languages which permitted the use of two official languages in regions where the size of an ethnic minority exceeds 10 percent.

Apart from the Russian-majority regions affected by this law, Hungarian, Moldovan and Romanian also lost their status as official languages in several towns in Western Ukraine.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said Ukrainian deputies were wrong to cancel the law, while European parliamentarians urged the new government to respect the rights of minorities in Ukraine, including the right to use Russian and other minority languages.

Konstantin Dolgov, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s commissioner for human rights, was far more damning in his criticism.

“The attack on the Russian language in Ukraine is a brutal violation of ethnic minority rights,” he tweeted.

Out of some 45 million people living in Ukraine, according to the 2013 census, some 7.6 million are ethnic Russians. Leaders of several predominately Russian-speaking regions have said they will take contr