Vladimir Putin has ordered Ukrainians living in Russia – or illegally occupied Ukraine – to commit to Russian citizenship or risk being kicked out, the UK says.
Putin signed a decree forcing Ukrainian nationals in any land Russia currently controls to “settle their legal status” by September 10, 2025.
If they miss this deadline, they will have to leave their homes.
Russia is currently occupying the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaoprizhzhia, Kherson and Crimea – around a fifth of Ukraine’s sovereign land.
According to the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD), the new order is part of Putin’s “Russification policy”.
“Russia’s decree is almost certainly intended to force the departure from Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory of Ukrainian nationals who refuse to accept Russian passports and citizenship,” the MoD said.
“Putin and the Russian senior leadership continue to prosecute a Russification policy in illegally occupied Ukrainian territory, as part of longstanding efforts to extirpate Ukrainian culture, identity and statehood.”
The British officials added: “This is in direct contradiction with Russia’s own stated recognition of Ukraine’s independence and sovereignty following the collapse of the Soviet Union, as well as broader international recognition of Ukraine.”
The sovereignty of those five occupied lands are expected to be one of the major sticking points in the peace talks.
Donald Trump is pushing for a quick resolution to the war, even if that means agreeing to Putin’s terms.
The US’s special envoy Steve Witkoff is leading these negotiations but during an interview with Tucker Carlson, was unable to name the five regions Putin is occupying.
He said: “The largest issue in that conflict are these so-called four regions, Donbas, Crimea, you know the names and there are two others.”
Witkoff also repeated Russia’s false claim that four of the partially occupied regions held referendums “where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule”.
These referendums were widely written off by the west as a sham.
Witkoff also claimed that four of these areas are Russian-speaking. While some do have plenty of Russian speakers, this has never indicated support for joining Russia.
But he told Carlson: “The elephant in the room is, there are constitutional issues within Ukraine as to what they can concede to with regard to giving up territory.
“The Russians are de facto in control of these territories. The question is: will the world acknowledge that those are Russian territories?”