Putin facing world’s wrath as ‘noose tightens’ on Ukraine public with warped second phase
Ukraine: Britons discuss their thoughts on the UK's involvement
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The Kremlin leader earlier this week signed a decree offering a simplified, quicker route to all Ukrainian signing up for Russian citizenship. Analysts suggested Moscow was seeking to establish permanent control of the territories it currently occupies in Ukraine.
More than 1.5 million Ukrainians have fled their country for Russia since the launch of the “special military operation”, according to the United Nations.
But a Ukrainian official has now accused Moscow of forcing civilians to “participate in criminal activities” with its new scheme.
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, quoted by the Kyiv Independent, mocked Putin’s “passport fantasies”.
He said: “Russia uses a simplified procedure for issuing passports to tighten the noose around the necks of residents of temporarily occupied territories of our country.”
This, he added, was “forcing them to participate in the criminal activities of occupation administrations and the Russian invading army”.
Volodymyr Zelensky was also highly critical of the policy, which he branded “criminal”.
The Ukrainian president said: “The purpose of this criminal policy is not just to steal people, but to make those who are deported forget about Ukraine and unable to return.”
The policy is by no means a new one.
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Russia has been using it over the past decade in “frozen-conflict areas” of the former Soviet Union, including Georgia and Moldova, the New York Times reports.
The paper notes that the process “provides Moscow with leverage against local governments if Russian passport holders live in areas that are not controlled by Moscow directly”.
Recent reports might suggest that such leverage is in high demand in Moscow, given difficulties in keeping hold of advances in Ukraine.
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A senior Western official late last month highlighted the immense and speedy consumption of artillery and ammunition on the battlefield.
They said this could be unsustainable in the long term.
The official told the Washington Post: “There will come a time when the tiny advances Russia is making become unsustainable in light of the costs.”
They added that Russia will “need a significant pause to regenerate capability”.
Ukraine is, however, facing its own similar difficulties, and is heavily outgunned to Russia in both artillery and ammunition.
The situation is made all the worse by reports that the West could soon find it more and more difficult to continue providing such high amounts of arms support to Kyiv given its own low stockpiles.
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