CASE STUDY340 D.A., male, 65 years old Country of birth: Russian Federation D.A. moved from the Russian SSR to the Lithuanian SSR for work in 1978. He “opted” for Lithuanian citizenship through the “zero option” procedure, but later decided to acquire the citizenship of the Russian Federation. In order to apply for this, he had to first renounce the citizenship of the Lithuanian Republic. D.A. and his family had for some time been thinking about moving back to Russia. Both he and his wife were born there, and their families lived there. For a long time, D.A. was postponing the acquisition of Russian citizenship. “We were not in a hurry because the situation was very unclear. I was afraid I would be deported, I was afraid I would not receive a pension, so I was postponing this decision. With time I saw some of my friends getting Russian citizenship and nobody was sending them away.” After his mother’s death, D.A. made up his mind to acquire the citizenship of the Russian Federation. To leave options open, his wife and he thought it would be best if one of them had Lithuanian and another had Russian citizenship. In late 1990s, D.A. applied for the citizenship of the Russian Federation. “ Both my parents were born in Russia. My father died many years ago, and while my mother was alive, I was not in a hurry to obtain Russian citizenship. When she died, I wanted to acquire Russian citizenship. So I did all I had to do, renounced my Lithuanian citizenship, paid all the fees and prepared all the documents here. We went to the embassy and in the end they rejected my application. The reason was that I didn’t have family members in Russia. My sister and brother lived there, but for the officials they were not considered family. I went to the embassy twice, and there was nothing I could do. They said: “If only you had your mother or father living there, we would immediately give you citizenship.” They didn’t even return my documents. And I was left stateless, I was just given a residence permit.” In cases in which the citizenship is renounced for the purposes of acquiring another country’s citizenship, Lithuanian law does not expressly address the standard of proof governing whether the would-be renunciant has in fact obtained another nationality. Temporary statelessness has been reported to occur in some instances. This occurs, for example, when other countries require the renunciation of existing citizenship (i.e., Lithuanian) during the acquisition procedure.341 In such cases, in order to be allowed to renounce Lithuanian citizenship, the person concerned must provide a written statement to the Lithuanian authorities proving that he or she will receive another citizenship.342 If the person eventually does not acquire another citizenship, he or she can have Lithuanian citizenship reinstated upon petition.343 If the person originally acquired citizenship by birth or had it restored or granted under the simplified procedure, Lithuanian citizenship will be reinstated.344 Persons who originally acquired Lithuanian citizenship by naturalization are only eligible for reinstatement if they acquired it at an age younger than 18 years.345 They would additionally need to fulfil the following conditions; lawful permanent residence in Lithuania during the previous five years; having the right to permanently reside in Lithuania at the time of application; having lawful means of subsistence; and not being barred from the procedure under any 340 Interviewed on 5 September 2012. 341 Interview with a staff member of Visaginas migration agency, 29 August 2012. 342 Electronic correspondence with a specialist of the Citizenship division of the Migration Department, 16 October 2012. See also Article 43(2) (3) of the Law on Citizenship. 343 Law on Citizenship, Article 21(1). 344 Ibid, Article 21 (4). 345 Ibid, Article 21(3). U N H C R S TO C K H O L M , M AY 2 0 1 6 77