Putin signs decree opening Russian citizenship path to Ukrainians

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Monday extending a simplified Russian naturalisation process to all citizens of Ukraine, a document published on the government's website showed.

Previously, a simplified procedure for acquiring Russian citizenship applied only to residents of the self-proclaimed breakaway territories of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) in eastern Ukraine, which Russia seeks to "liberate" from Kyiv's control, as well as the Russian-occupied regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the state news agency TASS reported.