ALPEYEVA AND DZHALAGONIYA v. RUSSIA JUDGMENT 13 and then to apply for Russian citizenship. Those affected would thus only surrender their passports to the FMS when applying for a residence permit. (c) The Ombudsman’s Annual Report 2011 81. On another occasion, referring to the practice of seizing Russian passports on the grounds that they had been erroneously issued, the Ombudsman noted that the problem had originated from the fact that, in the first decade after the disintegration of the USSR, former Soviet nationals who had found themselves in CIS countries had applied for Russian citizenship through Russian consulate agencies. At the time, this might not have been registered in the relevant databases, and additionally there had been no single database. As a consequence, many people who had been permanently living in Russia for a long time and were de facto Russian citizens were unable to prove that they had properly acquired Russian citizenship, and were thus deprived of any legal status in the country. 82. The Ombudsman further noted that at the end of 2010 a draft law had been presented to the State Duma, proposing a solution to the existing problem. Under this draft law, everyone who had been irregularly issued with Russian passports prior to 1 July 2002 should be considered Russian citizens from the moment their passports had been issued. (d) The Ombudsman’s Annual Report 2012 83. The Ombudsman pointed out that the draft law mentioned in the Annual Report 2011 had subsequently disappeared from the agenda of the State Duma. By this time, the overall number of Russian passports deemed invalid had reached 80,000. Approximately 8,000 passports were being declared invalid each year. 84. The Ombudsman further noted that amendments to the 2002 Russian Citizenship Act had been adopted on 12 November 2012. In accordance with the amended Act, holders of Russian passports who could not provide other evidence that they held Russian citizenship should be recognised as Russian citizens if they made an application to this effect to the FMS. B. International materials 1. United Nations 85. Russia is not a party to the 1954 United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, nor is it a party to the 1961 United Nations Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. 2. Relevant Council of Europe instruments 86. Desiring to promote the progressive development of legal principles concerning nationality, as well as their adoption in internal law, and desiring