Neha Jain
Conclusion
At the time the opening essay in this forum was published, Russian passportisation efforts in Ukraine
were steadily being expanded. Recent reports indicate an escalation in terror tactics being applied
in Russian occupied territories such as Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, with Ukrainian citizens being
confronted with the impossible options of either accepting Russian citizenship or having their property
confiscated and facing forcible deportation.351 These individuals are unlikely to find much comfort in
the snippets of official advice on what they should do: ‘If it is possible not to take a Russian passport,
then try not to take one. But if you have to take a Russian passport to avoid oppression and torture,
then take one.’
As this forum illuminates, the circumstances in which individuals come to acquire weaponised
citizenship rarely present in such binary ways. While for some such a passport may be the only way
to escape torture, for others, it represents the prospect––even if one seldom realized––of liberation
from second-class status in the country of original nationality. An international law of nationality that
fails to engage with empathy with the many reasons why citizenship comes to be invested with so
much meaning, both positive and negative, will be a poor bulwark against weaponised citizenship.
351 Rzheutska L. and Sokolova H., ‘Russia forces occupied Ukrainians to change citizenship’, DW, 5 May 2023, Russia forces occupied
Ukrainians to change citizenship – DW – 05/05/2023.
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Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies