You're reading: Parliament passes law on citizenship for foreign fighters

Ukraine’s parliament on Jan. 28 approved a long-awaited bill to grant citizenship to foreigners fighting in the country’s military – but some are doubtful the law is anything more than a PR stunt.

In accordance with the bill, passed in the
second reading with 239 votes, a foreign citizen will be eligible for
citizenship three years after signing a contract with Ukraine’s military and
residing in the country.

At first glance, the move would appear to end
long-brewing controversy over the need to give more rights to foreign citizens
who risk their lives for Ukraine fighting in the east, an issue that saw a
protest in front of the presidential administration in November, as well as a
petition signed by thousands of people. In December 2014, President Petro Poroshenko
publicly promised to grant foreign fighters with citizenship, though many
foreign fighters have complained since that time that there has been no
progress.

Dmytro Tymchuk, a Ukrainian military expert
and member of parliament who co-authored the law, praised the law’s passing on
Jan. 28 in comments on his Facebook page, congratulating all foreign fighters
with the good news.

“Now, our task is to ensure that Ukraine’s
bureaucratic machine doesn’t ‘bury’ both laws (the first allowing foreigners to
serve in Ukraine’s military, passed earlier) during execution. I am confident
that we can do that, and the laws will work,” Tymchuk wrote.

But many foreign fighters expressed disdain
about Tymchuk’s declaration that the law was a “triumph of justice,” instead
dismissing it as an empty promise.

Rustam Dok, a Belrusian citizen who served
with the Donbas Battalion since last May, called the law “pure populism” and said that describing it
“in any acceptable terms other than ‘dim-witted’ would be difficult.”

Dok himself has yet to receive citizenship
from the Ukrainian government, as do “99% of all the foreign volunteer
fighters,” he told the Kyiv Post.

According to him, the law offers very little
to foreign veterans, since it would require them to wait an additional three
years, and even then, he said, citizenship may not be granted.

Many foreign fighters “don’t want to give
three years of their lives (and maybe even their life in general) … just to be
deceived for the ninth time,” he said, adding that the president had already
repeatedly promised to grant citizenship based on a different law.

That law could already have been used to give
foreign fighters citizenship, though it hasn’t been, he said, revealing a lack
of political will. The president can use that law to award foreign citizens who
have performed a special duty or service for Ukraine; it has been used for
Odesa Governor Mikhail Saakashvili, a Georgian citizen, as well as Maria
Gaidar, the deputy governor of Odesa and a Russian citizen.

Since the EuroMaidan Revolution ushered in a
new government, a number of official positions in the government have been
filled by foreign citizens, all of whom were subsequently granted citizenship:
Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, a U.S. citizen; Economic Minister Airvaras
Abromavicius, a Lithuanian citizen.

“Mr.
Tymchuk, tell the Russian fighter Rubin, who lost his leg in the war, that your
new law is a ‘triumph of justice,’ as you say,” Dok wrote, referring to a
Russian citizen who’d been maimed while fighting Russian-backed separatists in
the east.

Alexander Valov, a Russian citizen who served
with the Azov Battalion, also mocked the law for what he described as its
abundance of bureaucratic hurdles and requirement of three years’ residency.

Valov earlier applied for asylum through
Ukrainian migration authorities, citing the danger he would face in Russia if
he were forced to return. He was initially denied, and after a subsequent
appeal, told he would need to present a “certificate proving no guilt in crimes
against humanity” in order to further seek asylum, he said.

He jokingly wrote that foreign fighters
seeking to take advantage of the new law “should not forget their certificates
proving they did not orchestrate genocide. Can’t forget that. In three years.”

Russian and Belarussian citizens who have
fought on behalf of Ukraine have been especially concerned with the issue of
citizenship, as many of them face persecution for their pro-Ukrainian views if
they return home.