Proposal aimed at those who would work with “enemy state” envisions sentences of 5-15 years
FILE PHOTO: An elderly woman holds her Russian and Donetsk People’s Republic passports, February 19, 2022 © AP / Alexei Alexandrov
A law proposed by the government in Kiev on Friday would see some Ukrainians who take out Russian passports punished with lengthy prison terms. Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk insisted the measure is not aimed against ordinary Ukrainians, but officials who worked with the “enemy state.”
The draft calls for a sentence of 10-15 years for any local or regional government employees who accept an “enemy” passport. Engaging in “propaganda for an enemy state” would carry a sentence of 5-8 years, while “compelling” Ukrainian citizens to accept an “enemy” passport would be punishable by 8-12 years behind bars.
Any Russian citizens engaging in “illegal passportization on the territory of Ukraine” would also be subject to these penalties, said Vereshschuk, whose portfolio is “reintegration of the temporarily occupied territories.”
She added that such a law “should have been passed in 2014.” After a US-backed coup in Kiev in February that year, Crimea voted to rejoin Russia while the Donbass regions of Donetsk and Lugansk declared independence. Kiev brutally suppressed protests in the Kharkov and Odessa regions, while sending the army into the Donbass.
Ukraine has been working on the draft since July, after blasting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to implement a fast-track citizenship procedure for any citizen of Ukraine. Many residents of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions have since availed themselves of the opportunity.
Earlier this month, Vereshschuk threatened anyone who would organize or participate in a vote to join Russia in the “occupied territories” with up to 12 years in prison and a confiscation of property, under the existing “collaboration” statute.
Last week, after Ukrainian troops moved into several cities in the Kharkov Region, following a “redeployment” of Russian forces, Vereshschuk also announced any teachers who had used the Russian curriculum would also face criminal charges. Meanwhile, Ukrainian state police said that “a reckoning” was coming for any civilians suspected of “collaboration” and set up “filtration” operations in the northeastern region.
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