The State Duma will consider the issue of deprivation of citizenship for “discrediting” the army

The State Duma is preparing the legal basis for depriving Russians of their acquired citizenship. One of the reasons may be the “discrediting” of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

Such an amendment to the Law “On Citizenship”, which was adopted in the first reading, the deputies intend to consider in March-April during the second reading, Izvestia writes with reference to the Duma Committee on the CIS.

The draft law was submitted to the State Duma by Russian President Vladimir Putin on December 29, 2021. The document changes the conditions for acquiring and terminating citizenship. In particular, the president proposed to ease the conditions for obtaining citizenship for more than 20 categories of foreigners: compatriots living abroad, close relatives of Russians, citizens of the former USSR and their children.

At the same time, the draft law provides for the extension of the grounds for deprivation of citizenship. Among them: terrorism, crimes against the state, trafficking in drugs and psychotropic substances.

The act passed its first reading in April 2022. According to Konstantin Zatulin, first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, more than 60 amendments have been tabled to the document for second reading. Including: deprivation of acquired citizenship for “discrediting” the RF Armed Forces, as well as the abolition of the requirement of a foreigner’s consent to obtain Russian citizenship by his child from a mixed marriage, if the family lives abroad, Zatulin noted.

“We very much hope that the bill will be adopted at the spring session. This is very important and needed. Therefore, I think in a month or two – this is March, April, and we will accept it, – said Kazbek Taysaev, first deputy chairman of the CIS Committee.

A one-year break in the consideration of the bill is related to the annexation of four Ukrainian regions, says Oleksandr Ternovtsov, a member of the Civic Chamber’s committee for consideration of socially important laws and other legal initiatives. According to him, the legislative initiative is primarily aimed at returning compatriots to their homeland.

If the law is passed with new grounds for deprivation of acquired citizenship, they will rarely be accepted, Ternovtsov believes. From the beginning of 2020 to May 2021, 280 people lost their Russian passports, recalls Alexander Zorin, candidate of legal sciences.

“This law is being discussed today because many Ukrainian citizens have become Russian citizens, and among them there are those who do not share our constitutional Russian values. Anyone could have been introduced at all, ”explains Zorin. He noted that today they can deprive the acquired citizenship on the basis of deliberately giving false information upon entry, in the case of refusal to take the oath, as well as in the case of crimes related to terrorism and extremism.