The announcement that all Ukrainians living in
Russia must regulate their legal status before the end of November coincided
with the armed searches last week of the Ukrainian Literature Library in Moscow
and the arrest of its Director Natalya Sharina.
The original notification from Russia’s Federal
Migration Service [FMS] was cryptic enough to warrant caution before drawing
conclusions. More details are now available and they are worrying.
In January 2014 Russia introduced a ‘90/180’ rule for countries whose nationals
do not require visas to enter Russia. You can only stay for 90 days
before leaving, and can only return 90 days later. This rule kept being
deferred with respect to Ukraine, and the news that no waivers would be
applied, except in the case of people fleeing from the military conflict in
Donbas came as a surprise. Viktor Hirzhov, co-head of the organization
Ukrainians of Moscow stressed in an interview to Radio Svoboda that kind
motives for the earlier preferential treatment need not be suspected. On
the contrary, the rule was waived as part of the deliberate attempts to
undermine Ukraine’s mobilization in the face of Russian aggression in Eastern
Ukraine. In January 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin even stated that the time limit on being in Russia
could be extended, especially for Ukrainians of mobilization age.
Hirzhov points out that the situation has now
changed, with Russian focusing on Syria and relative quiet on the Donbas
front. “Now there’s a new task – to
destabilize the situation in Ukraine, create social and political tension
through pushing out people able to work, primarily men.”
FMS figures suggest that there are 2.5 million
Ukrainians in Russia, however many Ukrainians will be living in Russia without
registering. The same is, of course, true of Russians living in
Ukraine. FMS talks of 600 thousand work migrants who must now receive a
work permit, temporary residence permit or marry. It is unclear how many
will be unable to do so and will be forced to return to Ukraine without work,
and quite likely without a place to live. That is the aim, Hirzhov
is convinced, with the disgruntlement generated to be used by opposition
political forces. He believes that the Russian authorities are also trying to
crush the Ukrainian Diaspora in Russia. He himself was recently removed
from a train returning to Russia and has been banned from the country for five
years. The attack on the Ukrainian Library then followed, and now these
measures against migrants.
Radio Svoboda also spoke with Irina Biryukova, a
Russian attorney specializing in migration legislation. The situation,
she says, has changed a lot recently, with far fewer Ukrainian nationals
seeking any type of status in Russia. Most interestingly, none of those
seeking legal assistance has wanted to receive Russian citizenship. “On the
contrary, they ask us to provide help in ascertaining what kind of status they
can get in order to be here temporarily. They plan to return home to
Ukraine”.
She is also dealing with at least one family who
were ‘automatically assigned Russian citizenship’ because they did not register
their wish to retain their Ukrainian citizenship during the one month allowed
for this immediately after Russia’s forcible annexation of Crimea. They
tried to renounce their unwanted Russian citizenship for six months before
approaching her, and together they have been battling for a further half
year. From conversations and her impressions, Biryukova says, obstacles
are put in the way of people trying to return to only Ukrainian citizenship.
Considerable pressure was brought to bear from
the beginning on Crimeans to take Russian citizenship. The fact that
Russia is now saying that people have ‘automatically’ become Russian is a clear
indicator that large numbers were in no hurry to do so. Those who have rejected
Russian citizenship, however, experience major difficulties with work, medical
care, etc. in Russian-occupied Crimea. Biryukova adds that even if such
Ukrainians have Crimean registration, they will still be treated as foreign
nationals and must ‘legalize’ their status in their native Crimea.
It should be stressed that Russia has already
banned two Crimean Tatar leaders - Mustafa Dzhemiliev and Refat Chubarov from
their homeland, and in December it ‘’deported’ Crimean rights activist Sinaver Kadyrov.
There are also a number of Ukrainian nationals who have been held
in unlawful detention for well over a year. It would not be surprising if
many Ukrainians feel very nervous about approaching the FMS to ‘regulate their
status’.
If, however, they ‘overstay’, then depending by
how long, they could be banned from entering Russia for between 3 and 10 years.
Russia’s policy towards Ukrainians changed and radically, Biryukova says,
when the military operation in Syria began. They see it in court hearings
on deportation. If you’re Ukrainian, the court orders deportation.
Although people from Donbas are not expelled, they do get told unofficially to
stop talking about the war, that instructions have been received from above,
that there’s no war now and they need to legalize their status like ordinary
foreign nationals. Hirzhov notes that many of those who fled the fighting
have been in no hurry to register, fearing that, like others, they will end up
sent to places like Magadan with terrible conditions that nobody wants to live
in.
The change is dramatic and came as a surprise to
Biryukova and her colleagues who were expecting the preferential conditions to
be extended to Jan 1, 2016. She does not see any coincidence and points
out that Ukrainian nationals had already stopped receiving temporary asylum.
In a case she is dealing with now, the mother had already received asylum, but
two sons of conscription age have been refused.
This sudden change of policy and likely flood of
people forced to return just as winter is setting in is yet another reminder
that Russia’s bombs may be falling elsewhere, but its hybrid war against
Ukraine is not over.
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