Obtaining Russian passport should be considered criminal offense - minister

The act of obtaining a passport of the aggressor state by a citizen of Ukraine, regardless of their motives, should be seen as a crime.

This opinion was expressed on Telegram by Iryna Vereshchuk, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories, Ukrinform reports.

"The enemies are in a rush to issue their passports and prepare for their ‘referendums.’ There should be no illusions here: passports and ‘referendums’ are Russian weapons, more dangerous than missiles. We must say clearly: this is a crime against our state! On the obtaining of passports, lawyers say that there may be certain, very small exceptions. For example, obtaining a passport in order to move to the territory controlled by Ukraine," the report says.

According to Vereshchuk, "fundamentally, any act of obtaining of a passport of the aggressor state by a Ukrainian citizen (regardless of their motives) should be considered a crime."

The deputy prime minister expressed her conviction that, in order to effectively oppose the occupation, a clearer and stricter position should be taken regarding passport holding and voting in sham referendums.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, the State Bureau of Investigation, which initiated the removal of the Deputy Chairman of the Kharkiv Regional Council, Bohdan Malyovany, has collected evidence that the official has earlier acquired Russian citizenship.