Ukrainian citizenship for foreign fighters, says Zelensky

BREITBART

Ukraine will change its citizenship law to allow foreign volunteer fighters to become Ukrainians, as well as “all ethnic Ukrainians” around the world to get passports, no matter how many generations different, the President has said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced a raft of new laws he had submitted to the national parliament (Verkhovna Rada) on Monday in a speech marking the Ukrainian Day of National Unity, an annual celebration of the short-lived 1917-era Ukrainian People’s Republic. Among the announcements are a serious liberalisation of Ukrainian citizenship law, allowing dual citizens for the first time and opening up passports to the global Ukrainian diaspora, as well as foreign military volunteers.

Speaking from Kyiv in a video address, Zelensky said “Everyone who has Ukrainian blood in their veins… should finally become Ukrainians by passport”. This would be facilitated by the introduction of multiple citizenship for the first time, he said, remarking: “it will allow all ethnic Ukrainians and their descendants from around the world to have our citizenship… all those who, during various emigration waves, were forced to leave their homeland and ended up in Europe, the United States, Canada, countries of Asia and Latin America.”

All those with Ukrainian heritage would be eligible, he said, except “of course” for citizens of “the aggressor country”, Russia.

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