. Identification re ention and reduction o state essness Despite some positive developments over the past years to resolve protracted situations of statelessness, the continuous high number of stateless persons highlights the need for reinforced efforts in this area and strengthened operational responses.101 Good practice: Statelessness following state succession – legal and administrative reforms in the Russian Federation facilitate the naturalization of stateless citizens The break-up of the former Soviet Union left millions of people stateless in the newly-independent Russian Federation. Pursuant to Article 13.1 of the 1991 Federal Law on Citizenship (1991 Citizenship Law) former Soviet citizens, who were permanent residents of the Russian Federation on the day the law took effect, were considered to be Russian citizens. However, they were entitled to make a declaration that they did not wish to be considered as citizens within one year from the entry into force of the Law. After 1992, the Russian Federation continued to attract many migrants from other former Soviet constituent republics, which had also become independent States. By the end of the 1990s, many former Soviet citizens in the Russian Federation had not undertaken affirmative steps to regulate their citizenship status either there or in other States they had ties with. Some had automatically become citizens of other newly-independent States, sometimes without knowing it, while others remained stateless because their personal circumstances were such that they did not qualify for nationality anywhere. Over the past 15 years, the implementation of legal and administrative reforms in the Russian Federation facilitated the naturalization of hundreds of thousands of stateless former Soviet citizens: A highly effective set of reforms was introduced in the 2002 Russian Law on Citizenship, which drew on the technical advice of international legal experts on how to address statelessness in the context of State succession. 71