Citizens of Ukraine who are forced to obtain a Russian passport should not be held accountable before the law, because they did it to survive, said an interview for ZN. UA Deputy Minister of Justice of Ukraine Valeria Kolomiets.

“For Ukraine, a citizen of Ukraine is always first and foremost a citizen of Ukraine.. Is there a responsibility for obtaining a Russian passport? It is not provided for yet, this is a debatable issue, but my opinion is unequivocal: if a person does this by force or is “automatically” accepted into citizenship, he is not guilty of anything,” she said..

According to the Deputy Minister, people in the occupied territories take passports in order to survive, to be able to carry out some kind of minimal legal activity..

“Obtaining a passport cannot be punished. And coercion to obtain a passport is another matter.. But this is a matter of collaboration of those who are coercion,” Kolomiets emphasized..

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As Mayor of Melitopol Ivan Fedorov noted, the occupiers plan to “passportize” half of the inhabitants of the occupied territories this spring, and 80 percent of this population must receive citizenship of the aggressor country by September.

At the same time, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine notes that in the Kherson region, Russian infidels threaten civilians with punitive actions for not having a Russian passport..