Deprivation of citizenship is used inter alia as a punitive measure against oppositionists, civil activists (Arshak Machikyan case, 2022-2023). 38. In these cases, Article 22 of the Law on Citizenship of the Russian Federation is applied, which allows the deprivation of acquired citizenship if the applicant, when submitting documents, indicated deliberately false information about him/herself (para 1 of Article 22). Conviction under articles related to terrorism and extremism is equated to providing false information (para 2 of Article 22). Legitimacy of paragraph 2 of Article 22 was confirmed by the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation,10 despite obvious contradictions to a number of justice principles. Firstly, Article 22 does not take into account how long the given "criminal" lived in Russia from the moment of acquiring citizenship to the commission of the crime. Thus, the law assumes that citizenship was obtained with the original criminal intent, which can be realized years and decades later. This makes the law retroactive, which is prohibited by Article 54 of the Russian Constitution. Secondly, Article 22 contradicts Article 20, which does not allow withdrawal from Russian citizenship if a person would become a stateless person. Finally, it violates Art. 6 of the Constitution, which asserts equality in the rights of both citizens by birth and those who acquired citizenship later, and proclaims that a citizen of the Russian Federation cannot be deprived of his/her citizenship. C. Assignment of Russian citizenship to children deported from Ukraine and their adoption in Russia 39. In 2018-2022, due to amendments to the legislation on citizenship, the acquisition of Russian citizenship was simplified for all citizens of and people born in Ukraine, including residents of the occupied territories and those who found themselves outside Ukraine.11 As a result, by July 2021, more than 600,000 residents of the so-called DPR and LPR received Russian passports.12 Ukraine does not recognize these documents.13 40. After the outbreak of the war in February 2022, thousands of children appeared to be in the occupied territories, including orphans in institutions and children temporarily separated from their parents (staying in health camps, visiting relatives, etc.). Already on March 9, 2022, at a meeting with the Children's Rights Ombudsperson of the Russian Federation, Maria Lvova-Belova, Putin promised to change the legislation based on her proposals in order to "eliminate bureaucratic delays" that prevent the adoption of orphaned children from Donbas in Russia. The result was a special decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 330 of 30.05.2022.14 41. The Conflict Observatory investigation “Russia's Systematic Program for the Re-education and Adoption of Ukraine's Children” (02/14/2023) traced the trajectory of 6,000 Ukrainian children (both orphans and those having parents) who were deported to Crimea and Russia at least for a while. It is unknown how many of them were placed under guardianship and even adopted into Russian foster families. At the end of October 2022, the media quoted Maria Lvova-Belova, as saying that Russian families had adopted 350 orphaned children, while 1,000 children were awaiting adoption. It should be emphasized that, although the media and statements 10 The case of Aleksei Novikov, the decision of the Constitutional Court, 11 March, 2021. 11 Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 183 of 24.04.2019 ("On determining for humanitarian purposes the categories of persons entitled to apply for admission to Russian Citizenship in a simplified procedure"); Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 187 of 29.04.2019 ("On certain categories of foreign citizens and stateless persons entitled to apply for admission to citizenship of the Russian Federation in a simplified procedure"); The Law "On Amendments to FZ-62", 2020 – the mandatory requirement to renounce former citizenship and comply with the condition of a 5-year period of residence has been abolished; Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 665 of 4.11.2020 – simplification of the acquisition of citizenship of the Russian Federation for holders of passports of the DPR and LPR, as well as their children, the optional availability of a passport of Ukraine; Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 304 of 25.05.2022 – simplification of obtaining citizenship for residents of the Zaporizhya and Kherson regions of Ukraine; decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 440 of 11.07.2022 – extension of the simplified procedure to all citizens of Ukraine, regardless of the territory of residence, as well as to stateless persons with Ukrainian registration; after the outbreak of the war – the extension of the simplified procedure to residents of the newly occupied territories. 12 Official statement of the First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs Viktor Vodolatsky, July 14, 2021. 13 On May 8, 2019, the Government of Ukraine adopted Order No. 362 "On non-recognition by Ukraine of passport documents issued by authorized bodies of a foreign state", which defines an updated list of departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation issuing passports of the Russian Federation, which Kiev does not recognize. 14 The decree stipulates the issues of assigning Russian citizenship in a simplified manner to orphans, children left without parental care, and incapacitated persons - residents of all parts of Ukraine. Later, the norm on the citizenship of children living in the occupied Kherson and Zaporizhya regions was established in the Federal Constitutional Laws on the annexation of the occupied territories: Federal Constitutional Law No. 7-FKZ dated 04.10.2022 "On the Admission of the Zaporozhye Oblast to the Russian Federation and the Formation of a New Subject within the Russian Federation – the Zaporozhye Oblast " and Federal Constitutional Law No. 04.10.2022 8-FKZ "On the admission of the Kherson Oblast to the Russian Federation and the formation of a new entity within the Russian Federation – the Kherson Oblast”. 7