In its 22 March intelligence update, the UK Defense Ministry said a new Russian regulation is likely designed to compel Ukrainian nationals in Russian-occupied territories to leave if they refuse to accept Russian passports and citizenship.
According to the Ministry, this Russian action is part of a broader strategy by Putin and the Russian leadership to enforce Russification, undermining Ukrainian culture, identity, and statehood.
The British Defense Ministry wrote:
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On 20 March 2025 Russian President Putin signed a decree that mandated Ukrainian nationals living in Russia, or in sovereign Ukrainian territory illegally occupied by Russia, to ‘settle their legal status’ by 10 September 2025, or leave the territory.
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Putin’s decree is almost certainly intended to force the departure from Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory of Ukrainian nationals who refuse to accept Russian passports and citizenship. Putin and the Russian senior leadership continue to prosecute a Russification policy in illegally occupied Ukrainian territory, as part of longstanding efforts to extirpate Ukrainian culture, identity, and statehood.
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Russia erroneously and illegally defines both occupied and unoccupied Ukrainian territory in the Ukrainian oblasts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, as well as Crimea, as being part of the Russian Federation. This is in direct contradiction with Russia’s own stated recognition of Ukraine’s independence and sovereignty following the collapse of the Soviet Union, as well as broader international recognition of Ukraine.
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