You're reading: Putin critic Maria Gaidar takes Ukrainian citizenship

Ukraine’s outsourcing of government positions now extends to Russia.

Maria Gaidar, the Russian activist who was appointed a
deputy to Odesa Governor
Mikheil Saakashvili last month, on Aug. 4
received Ukrainian citizenship in Kyiv.

The ceremony took place in President Petro Poroshenko’s
office where he personally presented the vocal critic of Russian President
Vladimir Putin her Ukrainian passport.

Vladimir Feodorin, a Russian journalist and former
editor of the Ukrainian edition of Forbes magazine, received Ukrainian
citizenship at the same ceremony.

Poroshenko thanked the two for their “courage and
civic position.”

“Your example clearly shows that it is impossible
to remain silent, we must live in harmony with our conscience,” the
president said.

Appointed to the regional government position on July
17, Gaidar had previously said she wanted to retain her Russian citizenship,
although under Ukrainian law dual citizenship is not permitted. Russia allows
it, but anyone who gets a second passport must inform the Russian authorities
of this within two months, except in special cases where Russia has individual
treaties on dual citizenship with other countries.

Speaking to Radio Liberty on July 20, Gaidar said she
would be working with former Georgian President
Saakashvili, who has also taken
Ukrainian citizenship, to tackle “corruption and a lack of openness,” in
Ukraine’s Odesa Oblast.

The
Harvard-educated Gaidar previously worked as
a
deputy governor of Russia’s Kirov region in 2009-11. She worked as an
adviser to Moscow’s deputy mayor in 2012-13.

The
earlier news of Gaidar’s appointment in Ukraine was greeted with anger in
Moscow, where one politician,
Vitaly Milonov, requested that she
be investigated for high treason.
Russia’s Commissioner for Human Rights Ella
Pamfilova
said that Gaidar’s charity Sotsialny Zapros would have its
grants from the Russian government frozen.

The charity, however, said Gaidar had already resigned as its head and
that it had voluntarily given up accepting grants from the Russian authorities.

Gaidar’s father Yegor Gaidar, a Soviet and later
Russian politician who died in 2009, was acting Prime Minister of Russia in
1992, and was responsible for designing and implementing a series of strict
reforms in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

While the reforms earned him praise from Western
economists, many Russians blamed him for the economic hardship and poverty that
followed in Russia in the 1990s.

Ukraine’s post-EuroMaidan government has drawn upon a
cadre of Western-educated Ukrainians, as well as foreigners from the U.S.,
Lithuania, Georgia, Poland and elsewhere to work as advisers and officials to overhaul
the nation’s outdated governing institutions.

Kyiv Post
editor Euan MacDonald can be reached at [email protected]