You're reading: Maria Gaidar applies to renounce Russian citizenship

ODESA - The acting deputy governor of Ukraine's Odesa Region, Maria Gaidar, filed an application to renounce her Russian citizenship.

“I have filed the application to renounce it,” Gaidar said when interviewed on air by the local TV Channel. She was asked by the presenter if she still had Russian citizenship after she got the Ukrainian one.

Gaidar was asked when she would seize to be a Russian citizen. And she said: “I do not know when exactly it will happen. But this is a mere formality, I was prepared [for that] and filed an application.”

It was reported that on August 4, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko granted Gaidar with a Ukrainian citizenship.

Maria Gaidar is a Russian opposition activist and a public figure. She is the daughter of the ideologist of the Russian market reforms of 1990s, Yegor Gaidar. For several years she was engaged by the administration of the Kirov Region in Russia, being an advisor to its governor on social issues. She used to be the founder and head of a foundation for social welfare and social support, known as Sotsialny Zapros, or “Social Demand”, but in mid-June 2015 she left the charitable organization. On July 17, the Odesa Region Governor Mikheil Saakashvili announced the appointment of Gaidar as his deputy, saying that she would be in charge of social welfare and, in order to be formally employed, she would apply for Ukrainian citizenship.