Granting Russian citizenship to be simplified

Russian government’s Committee for legislative drafting activities has approved with consideration of discussing it a draft bill submitted by Russia’s Federal Migration Service. The draft bill is designed to simplify the formalities for obtaining Russian citizenship for Russian-speaking foreigners, ITAR-TASS reported.

“It is proposed to simplify the procedure of granting the citizenship of the Russian Federation to foreign citizens and stateless citizens recognized as Russian language speakers, in case of renunciation of the present nationality of a foreign state or in case of lack of foreign citizenship,” the Cabinet’s official website says.

The statement specifies that the new procedure of obtaining Russian citizenship can be used by foreign and stateless citizens recognized as native Russian speakers, i.e. speaking fluent Russian and regularly using it in their family, at home, in social, cultural and other spheres, and whose lineal ancestors have earlier permanently lived on territories of the Russian Empire or the USSR, on condition of renunciation of the present foreign citizenship. It is planned that the recognizance of a person as a native Russian speaker would be made upon results of an interview held by a special commission.

In addition, to speed up the granting of Russian citizenship, the bill amends several legislative acts, thus facilitating the procedure of arrival and getting of a residence permit. Thus, it stipulates the granting of a simple visa on purpose of conferment of Russian citizenship, as well as the option of filing a residence permit omitting the existing preliminary phase of obtaining of a permit for temporary residence in the country and living with it not less than a year until getting the residence permit.

“The setting of terms in the bill, within the limit of which a contender of Russian citizenship should file for recognizing him as a native Russian speaker, obtaining a notice on the possibility of granting him Russian citizenship, as well as obtaining the residence permit should contribute to preventing cases of misusing the offered preferences for staying on the territory of the Russian Federation with other purposes,” the government noted.

Meanwhile, the bill envisages shorter deadline of three months to consider applications and take decisions on granting Russian citizenship on easier rules. The bill also suggests reducing from six to three months a deadline of considering applications for citizenship to participants of the state-funded program for assistance to voluntary resettlement of Russian compatriots living abroad to Russia.