Undocumented

Vyacheslav Popov was in prison when he heard from the Interior Ministry in July that he had been stripped of his Russian citizenship. The police statement informing him of the decision referred to a provision in Russia’s citizenship law allowing the state to revoke the passport of anybody convicted of a crime — in Popov’s case, planning a terror attack.

Prior to his conviction, Popov had lived with his mother in the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad where he worked as a handyman. He was detained ahead of Victory Day celebrations in May 2022 on suspicion of planning a terror attack against a military unit in the city. According to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), Popov was a member of Right Sector, a banned extremist organisation. State media later distributed a video of Popov confessing his crime.

Until 2015, Popov had been a member of BARS — the Baltic Vanguard of Russian Resistance — a Kaliningrad-based Russian nationalist movement made up of monarchists and ultra-Orthodox conservatives that held peaceful rallies in support of political prisoners, spoke out against corruption and wanted to see the city revert to its pre-World War II Prussian name Koenigsberg. Popov was ultimately sentenced to nine and a half years in prison.   

Not a citizen, not a problem

Stripping Russians of their citizenship is expressly forbidden by the country’s Constitution, but as Popov was born in Soviet Belarus and was a Soviet citizen until he became Russian after the collapse of the Soviet Union, his citizenship is considered “acquired”, according to Valeria Vetoshkina, a lawyer who works with Russian human rights organisation OVD-Info.

Sergey Davidis of human rights organisation Memorial says he is aware of dozens of cases in which people have been deprived of their acquired Russian citizenship.

In 2017, a law was quietly adopted which allowed the state to revoke the citizenship of any Russian who had acquired their citizenship and then gone on to be convicted of terrorism and/or extremism.

In late 2021, Vladimir Putin submitted amendments to Russia’s citizenship law to the State Duma, making it easier for applicants to obtain Russian citizenship. But after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the bill was amended to include increasingly harsh counter-measures, such as a right to strip people of their citizenship for receiving and giving bribes, or for robbery, extortion and hooliganism.

In late 2022, desecration of the flag, discrediting the army, spreading false information about the military, carrying out the activities of an undesirable organisation, desertion and committing other activities that posed a threat to national security were added to the list.

The law was adopted by parliament and signed by Putin in the spring of 2023, and by the end of the same year, two men from an unnamed country who also held Russian passports became the first people to be stripped of their acquired Russian citizenship after being convicted of drug trafficking.

On 17 July, with the support of the Interior Ministry, the FSB and the Justice Ministry, the State Duma adopted a law expanding the list of crimes punishable with the stripping of acquired citizenship. Last year, some 1,757 people were stripped of their citizenship in this way, according to a report by Deutsche Welle.

Second-class citizens

On 8 July, political strategist Dmitry Kisiev announced that he too was to be stripped of his citizenship after being deemed a threat to national security. His crime, however, was a political one — he had spearheaded the campaign of would-be opposition candidate Boris Nadezhdin in the 2024 presidential election before going on to work for the opposition New People party. Kisiev is from Crimea and became a Russian citizen in 2014 following the illegal Russian annexation of the peninsula from Ukraine.

“This divided people into two tiers: those who received citizenship by birthright, and those who acquired it. The latter now face constant risk. I fall into the second category, and can now be deported from a country where I have family, friends and property,” Kisiev wrote.

Nadezhdin voiced his support for Kisiev, calling the decision a dangerous precedent, saying “anyone who has been awarded Russian citizenship, like Dmitry, can be stripped of it. … Everyone who lived in Russia when the USSR collapsed received Russian citizenship this way.”

Environmental activist Arshak Makichyan, his father and two brothers were stripped of their Russian citizenship in 2022. Makichyan’s parents had moved to Russia from Armenia in 1995. Arshak’s father was granted Russian citizenship in 2002 as a former citizen of the USSR living in Russia. His children were subsequently granted Russian citizenship in 2004.

But in 2021, the Interior Ministry decided Arshak’s father’s passport had been issued in error, and the following year the entire Makichyan family had their Russian citizenship revoked, leaving them stateless, including one of Arshak’s brothers who was born in Russia, but whose citizenship was still considered acquired. Makichyan believes the decision was politically motivated.

“In 2022, I planned to run for the State Duma elections ... but I wasn’t nominated. The chairman of the Yabloko party told me later ... they were threatened that if they nominated me, I would be stripped of my citizenship. Then I actively spoke out against the war when I was in Germany. And then the case began. It divides people into first- and second-class citizens. This is state-level racism,” says Makichyan.

He received Armenian citizenship in 2024, and he currently has no illusions about the likelihood of him regaining his Russian citizenship. “I can’t go back to Russia now. They’ll arrest me,” Makichyan says. “If you’re not Russian, you’re expected to shut up or go back to where you came from.” 

Getting rid of pseudo-citizens

In August 2024, the Russian authorities adopted yet another set of amendments to laws on military service and citizenship, setting their sights on conscientious objectors. By law, newly naturalised Russian citizens are obliged to report to the military enlistment office within two weeks of obtaining a passport. Failure to comply with this requirement is deemed to be the equivalent of draft dodging and a violation of the constitution, and newly naturalised citizens who are unwilling to serve in the army have in many cases been stripped of their nationality.

One such case was that of Mirzomuhammad Karimov, from the city of Krasnoyarsk in Siberia. In 2024, Russian weekly The New Times reported that Karimov had received call-up papers but failed to attend the military enlistment office as he hadn’t had time to complete all the required medical tests. Then, when he turned 27, he quite reasonably decided that he was no longer obliged to report, like other men of his age.

It was at this point, however, that criminal charges were brought against him for evading military service. He was found guilty, fined 60,000 rubles (€600), stripped of his citizenship and warned he would be deported, though Karimov appeared unfazed by the threat, telling reporters his dual citizenship would allow him to stay on in Russia using his second passport.

For those without a second passport, living as an undocumented person in Russia is extremely challenging, as it’s difficult to get a job, access medical care, rent a home, get a driving licence or register a birth. In worst case scenarios, stateless people can be placed in temporary detention centres for foreign citizens for up to two years.

Since August 2021, the Russian authorities have issued temporary identity cards to stateless persons valid for 10 years. It affords holders the right of abode in Russia, but does not allow them to run in elections or hold public office, according to lawyers from Russian human rights organisation First Department.

As any dual citizen who has been convicted of a crime will be deported from Russia shortly after being released from prison, Central Asians convicted of belonging to Islamist organisations will face danger if they return to their countries of origin, says Sergey Davidis.

And even leaving Russia isn’t always easy. Take, for example, the situation with the Ukrainians now stuck on the border between Russia and Georgia. They include former prisoners who had served prison sentences in Russia and people deported from occupied parts of Ukraine for refusing to become Russian citizens or cooperate with the authorities. Despite the fact that just 20% of the 90 or so people stuck at the border have no criminal record, Georgia refuses to accept them “because they have committed crimes”.

Punishing disloyalty

Davidis says there are likely to be more cases of Russians being stripped of their citizenship and doesn’t rule out the authorities eventually coming up with a scheme that will allow them to strip Russians born in Russia of their citizenship if they need to.

“I think there’s a very strong desire to strip anyone they’ve initiated criminal cases against in absentia, i.e. Russian citizens abroad, of their citizenship,” Davidis says. “The constitution expressly prohibits this, but they really want to do it.”

“I don’t want to give them any ideas, but the next stage could be them stripping anyone over 32 of citizenship, because they were born in the USSR, not in Russia. I don’t know what kind of legal trick they can come up with against those born in Russia,” he notes.

In fact, Russian lawmakers have repeatedly considered passing laws that would allow the authorities to strip Russians who were born in Russia of their citizenship. In April 2022, Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, one of the most vocal critics of Russians in exile, proposed stripping Russian citizens who have been critical of the war in Ukraine of their citizenship.

Ethnic identity is not important. What is important is that people had been citizens of one state, and then became Russian citizens after the collapse of the USSR.

“Technically, these new rules apply to those who have acquired their Russian citizenship, including ethnic Russians,” one migration expert, who spoke to Novaya Gazeta Europe on condition of anonymity, said, adding that it was clear that the groundwork was being laid to allow the Russian government to strip anybody of their citizenship.

“Though the constitution expressly forbids it, Russian legislation views citizenship as a contractual relationship between the state and the citizen, not an inalienable right, that can be cancelled by the state unilaterally.”