Passportization is defined as the mass conferral of

citizenship Citizenship is a membership and allegiance to a sovereign state. Though citizenship is often conflated with nationality in today's English-speaking world, international law does not usually use the term ''citizenship'' to refer to nationalit ...

to the population of a particular territory by distributing

passports A passport is an official travel document issued by a government that certifies a person's identity and nationality for international travel. A passport allows its bearer to enter and temporarily reside in a foreign country, access local aid ...

, generally within a relatively short period. This policy has been primarily used by Ukrainian and Russian authorities who have provided easy access for persons born on the territory, sometimes holders of former Soviet passports, to apply for citizenship. In particular, the requirement of five years' residence on both Russian and Ukrainian territories is suspended for former citizens of the Soviet Union.

Georgia

In Georgia this occurred in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, where residents continued to be the citizens of Soviet Union and kept Soviet passports even a decade after the break-up of the Soviet Union. In 2002, a new Citizenship Law of Russia simplified acquisition of citizenship for any citizen of the Soviet Union, regardless current place of residence. In Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Russian nationalist non-governmental organizations such as the Congress of Russian Communities of Abkhazia carried papers to a nearby Russian city for processing so that residents did not need to travel to obtain Russian citizenship. By June 25, 2002, approximately 150,000 Abkhazians had gained Russian citizenship in addition to the 50,000 who already possessed it, with the blessing of authorities in

Sokhumi Sukhumi or Sokhumi is a city in a wide bay on the Black Sea's eastern coast. It is both the Capital city, capital and largest city of Abkhazia, a partially recognised state that most countries consider a part of Georgia (country), Georgia. The ...

. The Georgian Foreign Ministry denounced the passport allocation as an “unprecedented illegal campaign”. On February 1, 2011, Soviet passports were no longer considered valid for crossing the Russian-Abkhaz border. In April 2009, the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities stated there was "pressure being exercised on the Georgian population in the Gali District through the limitation of their education rights, compulsory "passportization", forced conscription into the Abkhaz military forces and restrictions on their freedom of movement." An effort to force ethnic Georgians in Abkhazia to take on Abkhaz citizenship was rebuffed in 2009. Russia's extraterritorial naturalization practice in South Ossetia and Abkhazia since 2002 constitutes an intervention contrary to international law and violates Georgia's territorial sovereignty.

Russia

Russia has been naturalizing people in the Ukrainian regions of

Donetsk Donetsk ( , ; ; ), formerly known as Aleksandrovka, Yuzivka (or Hughesovka), Stalin, and Stalino, is an industrial city in eastern Ukraine located on the Kalmius River in Donetsk Oblast, which is currently occupied by Russia as the capita ...

and

Luhansk Luhansk (, ; , ), also known as Lugansk (, ; , ), is a city in the Donbas in eastern Ukraine. As of 2022, the population was estimated to be making Luhansk the Cities in Ukraine, 12th-largest city in Ukraine. Luhansk served as the administra ...

on a large scale since 2019. This became possible after Art. 29 para. 1.1 Russian Citizenship Act was inserted by law of 27 December 2018. This provision empowers the Russian President to establish categories of foreign citizens and stateless persons eligible to apply for Russian citizenship under the simplified procedure. By Decree No. 183 of 24 April 2019, residents of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions became eligible accordingly. During the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

, Ukrainians were subjected to forced passportization in the occupied parts of the

Kherson Kherson (Ukrainian language, Ukrainian and , , ) is a port city in southern Ukraine that serves as the administrative centre of Kherson Oblast. Located by the Black Sea and on the Dnieper, Dnieper River, Kherson is the home to a major ship-bui ...

and

Zaporizhzhia Zaporizhzhia, formerly known as Aleksandrovsk or Oleksandrivsk until 1921, is a city in southeast Ukraine, situated on the banks of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. It is the Capital city, administrative centre of Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Zaporizhzhia ...

oblasts."Forced passportization in the temporarily occupied territories: why one should not take a Russian passport"
VisitUkraine, 14 August 2022

References

Identity documents Law enforcement in the Soviet Union