On Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree streamlining the process of obtaining Russian citizenship and passports for residents of Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
The proclamation is a step closer to “Russification” of the two regions, as Moscow’s conflict in Ukraine has allowed it to build a continuous land bridge connecting Russia to the Crimean peninsula, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Putin’s decision expands a scheme available to residents of Russian-backed separatist-controlled areas in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions, where Moscow has issued around 800,000 passports since 2019.
In mid-March, Russia claimed full control of the Kherson area north of Crimea, as well as sections of the Zaporizhzhia region to the east.
The Ukrainian governor of Kherson has been deposed, and the military-civilian administration said earlier this month that it intends to request Putin’s approval to join Russia by the end of 2022. Ukraine has promised to reclaim all of its confiscated land.
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