President Volodymyr Zelensky believes that Ukrainian political and religious figures who, in addition to Ukrainian, also have Russian citizenship, should remain only with the latter and live in Russia. This is reported by the publication Delo.ua.
The Head of State stated this at a press conference with Presidents of Poland Andrzej Duda and Lithuania Gitanas Nauseda, answering a question about his decisions to deprive four deputies of the Verkhovna Rada and 13 clergymen of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from Ukrainian citizenship. At the same time, he said that the reason for the decisions regarding some of them was other than having a second citizenship.
“The two lists you mentioned… I think you just don’t know about everyone – and thank God, because there would be more questions. But nevertheless, there are people who are deprived of citizenship in accordance with Ukrainian legislation, the Constitution of Ukraine. Some of these people are really deprived due to the fact that they have the citizenship of another state. I would say the maximum majority of these people,” the head of state said.
According to him, he cannot disclose all other details, since we are talking about “details that ensure security in our state by the Security Service of Ukraine.” At the same time, Zelensky assured that further possible decisions on deprivation of citizenship would not concern “patriotic citizens of our state.”
On the other hand, the president made it clear that in relation to people with Russian citizenship, work will definitely be carried out to deprive them of their Ukrainian citizenship, and advocated that they live in Russia.
“As for how to proceed. Our task is to ensure that all people who today have dual or triple citizenship, including citizenship of the Russian Federation, and who have political or spiritual influence on our state, must have one citizenship – the Russian Federation, if they also have it. I think, let them live in the corresponding state with this citizenship. It seems to me that this is absolutely fair, ”he stressed.
