Authoritarian regime stabilization through legitimation, popular co-optation, and exclusion: Russian pasportizatsiya strategies in Crimea

ABSTRACT

In the spring of 2014, Russian authorities distributed, rapidly and on mass, Russian passports to their newly and controversially acquired citizens within Crimea. This passport distribution strategy, or pasportizatsiya, can be seen as a continuation of the Soviet practice which was conducted to spatially control a population. In focusing on the most contemporary instance of this practice, this paper asks: how and why did pasportizatsiya take place in Crimea? The research involved a processed-focused empirical data collection, consisting of interviews conducted with Crimeans and NGO representatives. The article finds that distribution of Russian passports to Ukrainian citizens in Crimea provided the Russian Federation with a regime stabilization mechanism, through the population within their new and controversially acquired territorial borders.

KEYWORDS:

• Russia
• Crimea
• authoritarianism
• passport distribution
• regime stabilization
• legitimation
• co-optation
• repression

Introduction

On the 1 March 2014, Vladimir Putin obtained permission from the Russian parliament to use force within Crimea (BBC, 2014, November 13). The granting of this consent by the state Duma instigated a rapid escalation of Russia’s attempt to incorporate the territory, with a variety of practices eventually culminating in annexation. Following the Russian military occupation of the peninsula, Crimea’s regional parliament declared Crimea independent of Ukraine, on 11 March 2014 (Mezzofiore, 2014, March 11). This affirmation allowed for a referendum on 16 March 2014, where the Crimean population were asked whether Crimea should officially become part of the Russian Federation. Although the referendum and the result were decried as illegal by the OSCE (2014, March 11), approximately 96% of the voters indicated they were in favour of unification with Russia (BBC, 2014, November 13). Russia followed suit on 21 March 2014, by introducing Article 4(1) of Federal Constitutional Law No. 6-FKZ, which, under Russian legislation, incorporated the Crimean Peninsula into Russian Federal territory. Putin consistently claimed that escalation was necessary to facilitate ‘protecting the interests of Russian citizens and compatriots’ (Walker & Salem, 2014, March 1). In Putin’s address to Russian parliament on 18 March 2014, he stated: ‘millions of Russians and Russian-speaking people live in Ukraine and will continue to do so. Russia will always defend their interests using political, diplomatic and legal means’ (Putin, 2014, March 18), continually framing Russia’s involvement in the conflict as a defence against Ukrainian aggression (Putin, 2014).

The Russian distribution of passports in Crimea began on a substantial scale on 18 March 2014 (Liberty Radio, 2014, March 19). In this month, estimates suggest that over a million Crimean residents received Russian passports (Falaleev, 2014, June 11) in a simplified naturalization and distribution process. Russian state media outlets proudly commended their bureaucratic officials for the efficient and comprehensive manner in which the citizenship conferral process was conducted. Crimean residents appeared to welcome the offer of a Russian passport, with some queueing throughout the day to reach the ad hoc Russian immigration centres positioned across the peninsula. Although the Russian authorities gave little information about this process, word-of-mouth and informal Internet information sites were created both by those welcoming, and those condemning the practice (Haiduk, 2014, March 20). The relatively recent emergence of the practice leaves an empirical gap in establishing a comprehensive narrative of the conflict in Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea, so how and why did pasportizatsiya take place in Crimea?

This paper will argue that Russian pasportizatsiya facilitated Russian regime stabilization within Crimea, through a control of a population involving large-scale co-optation of the political obedient as well as the exclusion of the dissident. For the Russian Federation and their presence in Crimea, this process of distribution also might have had legitimizing elements within Crimea. Engaging the population in this manner is here interpreted as a deliberate attempt to legitimize Russia’s claims to the territory through the populace. This research on pasportizatsiya as an instrument of regime stabilization seeks to address others operating within conceptual framework relating to ‘new authoritarianism’.

The first two sections of this paper refer to the relevant literature; the first attempts to tie Soviet instances of pasportizatsiya with contemporary Russian examples, while the second explores the relevant literature within the field on the subject, providing the theoretical framework for the analysis. The third section provides the rationale for adopting a semi-structured interviewing methodology. The empirical analysis is presented here in two sections: firstly, the inclusionary elements of the passport distribution process, which is then followed by a separate section on the exclusionary elements.

Contextualizing pasportizatsiya

Pasportizatsiya as a strategy is not new. However, despite the term’s relatively frequent use among Russian and Soviet political scientists, it is often described yet left undefined. Most of the contemporary literature on the matter tends to focus on the external dimension of the practice (e.g. Artman, 2013; Green, 2010), and therefore, it is important to note that the use of the term in this paper departs from these interpretations, therefore, bringing the meaning of pasportizatsiya closer to the term used by Soviet specialists (e.g. Garcelon, 2001; Matthews, 1993; Shearer, 2004). We may then consider pasportizatsiya and its direct English translation ‘passportization’, to mean in its most rudimental sense, as the system of passport distribution to a population.

The issuance of a Soviet internal passport was tied directly to the registration of the passport number to a particular residence and place of work (Shearer, 2004, p. 838). Consequently, the passport was utilized by Soviet regimes as a tool of governance and specifically as a method of control (Garcelon, 2001; Matthews, 1993). Shearer (2004), who refers to the Soviet Union’s internal passport system as passportization, argues that ‘the passport system became the key tool in an administrative technology of surveillance and control that linked identity to employment, residence, and access to goods’ (p. 838). The Soviet internal passport, therefore, became a tool through which to exert spatial control and stratification of a population (Garcelon, 2001; Matthews, 1993; Shearer, 2004). Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, Russia has actively distributed passports to non-Russian citizens within the territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and more recently, in Crimea (Grigas, 2016). These cases have unique contextual specificities; however, the intent of contemporary pasportizatsiya strategies appear to be coherent with that of the Soviet practice, where the very act of distributing and receiving these documents strongly impacted political ordering, identity, and linkages to territory (Shearer, 2004). The parallels between Soviet pasportizatsiya and contemporary Russian pasportizatsiya strategies in Crimea are striking. The Crimean example is a complicated case. The highly contentious nature of the annexation of Crimea and subsequently border revision makes attempting to categorize pasportizatsiya in Crimea as either an internal or external practice convoluted. Nevertheless, many of the dynamics involved with this strategy remain evident and the parallels, in consequence, more than method, between the distribution of the Soviet ‘internal passport’ and the Russian passport, are significant. The inclusionary and exclusionary practices involved with the distribution of Russian passports to Crimean residents resulted in a controlled targeting of segments of the population with real implications on their position vis-à-vis their territory and the political authorities. The effects of globalization, which facilitated information diffusion among those who received Russian passports and citizenship, driven by an increasingly complex desire of the Russian state to engage, embrace, and control populations within their, new, controversially revised borders, ultimately facilitated this process. Although controlling inclusionary and exclusionary elements are all evident in the most recent instances of Russian passport distribution in Crimea, the similarities between the Soviet Union’s internal passport regime and this process differ primarily in the existent elements of recipient consent in its contemporary form of Russian pasportizatsiya strategies.

The breakup of the Soviet Union coupled with a dichotomy in classification between Russian cultural citizens – Rossiane – and the Russian ethnie – Russkie has meant that along with those living in Russia, ethnic Russians- Russkie – reside in the nation-states that make up the former Soviet Union in large numbers and form a significant proportion of this population. Russian, as the lingua franca of the Soviet Union, still commands a significant role, as an official language with prominent use, in connecting the nation-states of the former Soviet Union, to Russia, and further deepening these linkages. Russian politicians explicitly referenced these connections between Russia and those people residing in the neighbouring countries when defending their actions regarding pasportizatsiya strategies (Mühlfried, 2010).

Before the implementation of pasportizatsiya within Crimea, Russian citizenship legislation relating to naturalization processes had undergone substantial modifications since the turn of the millennium, allowing for an internal legalization of pasportizatsiya in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and both pre- and post-annexation Crimea. An amendment to Article 13 1., of law No. 62-FZ, on 31 May 2002 (Legislationline, 2002), eased the jus domicile naturalization requirements, which provided the domestic legal framework for operationalizing the conferral of Russian citizenship to populations both ‘internal’ and ‘external’. The 2002 modified article 14 of the same law detailing naturalization requirements, waived the requirement of residential status on Russian soil for those who wished to become Russian nationals, simplifying the legal procedure. A decade later, on 20 April 2014, approximately one month following the commencement of rapid conferral of Russian citizenship to the majority of Crimea’s residents, legislation was again modified to allow for increased naturalizations; Law 71-FZ amended the Federal Law Article 14 ‘On Citizenship of the Russian Federation and Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation’ which simplified the naturalization process for Russophones (Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 2014, April 23). This modification stated, ‘a person recognised as a speaker of the Russian language will be given notice of the possibility of receiving Russian citizenship’ (Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 2014), relaxing the previously required jus domicile, jus sanguinis, and jus soli requirements for obtaining Russian citizenship. Speaking before the implementation of this legislation modification, Medvedev stated: ‘The proposed amendment will thus create an additional mechanism for protecting the interests of Russian citizens living abroad’ (2012, April 24).

The initial pasportizatsiya strategies conducted in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Crimea pre-annexation were operationalized at an individual level, targeting ethnic Russians, Russkie, and involved high levels of secrecy. This passport distribution process was followed by a second-stage strategy which appeared to target Russophones and was conducted either secretly or semi-secretly. The focus of this article, however, will be the implications of Russian passport distribution strategies, within Crimea, following the occupation of the peninsula in 2014, the third modification to the practice. Unlike Abkhazia and South Ossetia which to date remain de facto independent states, Crimea is now de facto part of Russian territory, diverging from the extra-territoriality of the practice prevalent in pasportizatsiya strategies before those beginning in Crimea in 2014.

Positioning Russia and pasportizatsiya within the literature on new authoritarianism

Krastev (2011) argues that Russia is an ideal case in explaining the paradoxes of new authoritarianism for three reasons: firstly: ‘Russia was the place where history ended and also where it has returned’ (p. 7), secondly: ‘it highlights the key features of the new competitive authoritarianism’ and is ‘only mildly repressive’ (p. 8), and thirdly ‘Putin’s regime survives even though elites and ordinary people alike view it as dysfunctional and uninspiring’ (Krastev, 2011). The position that Russia is transitioning towards democracy or protracting from it (Levitsky & Way, 2010, pp. 4–5) has long been abandoned as political scientists have largely reached consensus that Russia should be considered as an authoritarian regime (Gel’man, 2015; Petrov, Lipman, & Hale, 2014; Zimmerman, 2015). With this in mind, the analysis of Russian state practices might shed some light on the functioning of contemporary authoritarianism. Authoritarian regimes, globally, have undergone substantial alterations in recent decades in response to the challenges and opportunities posed by the consequences of globalization. The opening of physical borders, particularly those prohibiting free-movement around the Soviet Union, coupled with increasingly fluid information and communication streams has changed the manner by which regimes engage with, and exact control over, their populations. This results in creative and perhaps counter-intuitive control mechanisms, as others in this special issue have shown. Collyer and King (2015) refer to these responsive, evolutionary adaptations of authoritarian regimes by suggesting that they employ: ‘direct, symbolic and imaginative controls on transnational space’, which ‘rarely act independently of each other’ (p. 196).

Regime survival is a crucial objective for both democratic and authoritarian regime. While stability is sought by all regime types, the method of attempting to achieving this aim differs. Gerschewski (2013) identifies three pillars of authoritarian regime stabilization mechanisms: repression, co-optation, and legitimation, with all three pillars evident in Russian pasportizatsiya strategies within Crimea. While repressive elements of authoritarian regimes are directed at the larger population, much of the research conducted into co-optation mechanisms have predominately dealt with this at an elite level (Gandhi & Przeworski, 2007; Holbig, 2013; Kailitz, 2013; Magaloni, 2008; Reuter & Robertson, 2015). However, co-optation need not be a phenomenon exclusively involving elites nor is it uniform phenomenon. In a typology of co-optation variances, Schmotz (2015) refers to a co-optation concerning a distribution of material goods to compensate for vulnerability:

[T]he two principal means of binding relevant actors to the regime are institutional inclusion and the distribution of material benefits. Both strategies generate a stake in the regime for the targeted actors. If actors want the spoils to continue to flow, they have to support the regime and contribute to its survival. If they want to continue to enjoy the benefits of institutional inclusions, they will have to do the same. Note that institutional inclusion and material benefits are often intertwined. (p. 442)

This paper argues that the ‘targeted actors’ of the post-annexation pasportizatsiya co-optation are the politically obedient non-elite Crimean population, who provide Russia with institutional stability on the peninsula. The vulnerability here would be their acceptance of their new, controversial state’s passport and citizenship, which is potentially invalid internationally. The material exchange in this co-opting relationship is the provision of financial benefits, access to state and private sector services, increased pension payments and mobility opportunities to those who have accepted Russian citizenship. The process of passport distribution itself has the potential for a legitimizing yet controlling, exclusionary effect, as the Russian Federation begins to perform as the de facto state would towards its population, regardless of its legal status.

Russia’s embrace of nationalism, Cannady and Kubicek (2014) argue, should be interpreted as a return to nineteenth Century politics, where patriotism, power, and statism strengthen the legitimacy of the regime. This nationalistic desire played out in the policy was also observable in Soviet Union practices, as Agarin (2015) claims: ‘state-building nationalism was not a by-product of the Soviet regime; it was central to the Soviet societal fabric’ (p. 109). Russian nationalism in an apparent continuation of the Soviet brand is not defined solely along ethnic lines. Ziegler (2006) reasons that ‘complex range of identities in the non-Russian republics … mean shared cultural characteristics tend to be more salient than primordial ethnic ties’ (p. 107).

Simultaneously and somewhat paradoxically, although Russian state practices may be interpreted as a return to imperial politics, methods adopted by authoritarian regimes are adapting to address hypermobility caused by globalization. Krastev (2011), referring to a subtler form of control, tackles the counter-intuitively or ‘perversity’ of the open-borders of new authoritarian regimes, posing the problem that if we consider these so repressive, why do subjects of these nations return, willingly, given their opportunity to emigrate?

The use of the passport as an instrument of power exertion is exemplary of new authoritarian developments, as its use can be, as Torpey (2000) suggests, a method by which a state ‘embraces’ its population. Salter (2003) proposes it is the most effective method of control a state has over their subjects and citizens. In addition to being the primary document facilitating travel, the passport is a highly symbolic book signifying national identity and state belonging (Torpey, 2000).

Matthews (1993) and Garcelon (2001) both have argued that the Soviet Union used the internal passport as a means to control their population, documenting their subjects, reifying ethnic identities, and anchoring them to a particular territory. The embracing capabilities of the passport may highlight the continuation of Soviet ‘attract and hold’ population and immigration policies. Lohr (2012) contends these are the most enduring piece of Russian policy, a similar instance of hybridity that many scholars of ‘new authoritarianism’ allude to, implementing policy which combines soft power attraction with control mechanisms.

Agarin and Karolewski (2015) seek to address the regional implications for extraterritorial citizenship conferrals, explicitly referring to the distribution of Russian passports in post-Soviet nation-states. However, their analogy of this process as ‘throwing passports across the border’ (p. 3) is limiting in its explanatory power for the Crimean case as it implies an indiscriminate practice to naturalize any non-nationals in a foreign territory. As this paper will argue, a deliberate selective targeting of specific segments of society contradicts their resemblance.

Although a passport distribution strategy beyond legitimate territorial borders might be thought of as a diaspora engagement policy, the annexation, although controversial, no longer means the Crimean population can be considered as a typical diasporic group. Therefore, this paper pays only superficial attention to those dealing with diaspora engagement policies in general (e.g. Gamlen, 2006; Ragazzi, 2014) or the Russian diaspora specifically (e.g. Kolstø & Edemsky, 1995; Zevelëv, 2001).

Methodology

To definitively determine the Russian Federation’s intent of their passport distribution strategies, it would be necessary to receive a direct response to this question from Russian policymakers. Unfortunately, this is, of course, extremely difficult. In ideal circumstances, semi-structured interviews would be conducted with passport officials, policymakers, bureaucrats, administrators, and clerks in Crimea and from the Kremlin, to pose the question: what was the Russian Federation’s intent with regards to pasportizatsiya in Crimea? However, the closed nature of these institutions and the difficulty of access in these regions will direct the focus of the empirical section of this article towards the populations of these regions, the subjects of these institutions. The intent of a strategy can only conclusively be determined by the strategists themselves; however, the methodology employed for this article attempts to overcome this limitation. In lieu of finding the ‘smoking gun’ on Russian foreign policy relating to this practice, this research involved conducting semi-structured phenomenological interviews between February and June 2016 with the subjects of the Russian state’s reach. This allowed to trace state intentions with regards to pasportizatsiya, as the analytical focus is maintained at the top-down, state level. An overarching process tracing methodology was employed, which traced patterns and similarities in the practices. This analysis, instigated from the bottom-up, reveals details about the discriminatory elements of the practice, hidden by the legislation.

It is important to note my limitations in conducting this research, predominately in the form of linguistic, financial, and time constraints. To overcome the limitation of lack of physical access to the region, the interviewees (N-14) were located by searching within social media platforms, namely Facebook and VK, by filtering members per region, country, and issue – a sourcing method gaining traction in social science research. The interviewees were geographically dispersed across Crimea, from Sevastopol, Simferopol, Yalta, and Kerch and were from divergent socioeconomic backgrounds and networks.

To circumvent the linguistic obstacle to conducting interviews, with the help of my colleagues, I posted requests for interviewees on these social media platforms in Russian, Ukrainian, and English. For those that responded in English, I was able to interview in English, for those who responded in Russian or Ukrainian, the interviews were more structured as I was required to translate a series of questions into Russian and Ukrainian and pose these to the interviewees.

The experiences of the individuals affected by the Russian passport distribution policies were triangulated by interviewing an NGO lawyer and an NGO employee, as well as a data analysis of credible media sources. Significant events, signalled by the responses from the interviewees provided the parameters for desk-top research into the incidents, speeches, legislation changes etc. that the interviewees referenced; their names provided here are pseudonyms to protect their anonymity.

One potential bias involved in conducting semi-structured interviews is that I was only able to interview those who came forward to my request to interview, an inherent constraint when conducting any form of interviewing in the social sciences. This could have the potential to influence the results, as those who have had a particularly memorable or extreme experiences may be more willing to communicate their story. Given the respondents were sourced almost solely from social media platforms, they were also probably the younger segments of the population. However, the research was not intended to present a representative sample of experience and the findings from the interviews were triangulated across multiple sources, and the interviewees included some who were both pro- and anti-Russian orientated.

Inclusion

Russian pasportizatsiya strategies operated with both inclusionary and exclusionary elements, subsequently stabilizing Russian presence in Crimea. Of the three pillars of authoritarian regime stabilization referred to by Gerschewski (2013), co-optation and legitimation are closely linked. It is argued here that the Russian operationalization of pasportizatsiya in Crimea involved a form of popular co-optation which, coupled with potential legitimizing elements, constitute the inclusionary aspects of this practice.

Co-optation

To understand how Russian popular co-optation of the Crimea population functioned, we can ask: why were Crimean residents willing to queue to obtain Russian passports? The Russian Federation’s ability to enact a practice of passport distribution was contingent on the significant positive influence the state exerted and continues to exert, over many of the populations in their neighbouring territories, resulting in substantial willing compliance to their actions. The nation-states that were previously nations within the former Soviet Union were shaped considerably by the Union’s integration, consolidation, and eventual break-up. One of these consequences has been that Russia remains extremely influential as a political, economic, and social hegemon (Blank, 1995). The pasportizatsiya strategy employed by Russia within Crimea relied on both the associative nature of the relationship, forged during the linkages in Soviet times and the more deliberate attempt at asserting influence. Without the connection formed during the existence of the Soviet Union, the expedited, simplified naturalizations of non-Russian citizens, and the distribution of Russian passports to these citizens would have been significantly less straightforward. The notions of nationality and citizenship are complex at best, and this is especially so in the former Soviet Union where the neat overlap between nationalities and nation-states did not exist and has remained elusive in many parts of this now disintegrated bloc (Ziegler, 2006).

Many of the interviewees for this research cited Russian promises of increased financial security as primary reasons for accepting the conferral of Russian citizenship and receipt of their passport, while others acknowledged that they believed the Russian passport would allow for greater employment and mobility opportunities both within Crimea and elsewhere. Denys Shevekno, a human rights lawyer working for Crimea based NGO ‘Crimea SOS’, believes, however, that the improved perception of Russia had been steadily bolstered preceding the annexation and mass passport distribution, because of the increasingly favourable image within Crimea of the Russian military stationed within Sevastopol’s Black Sea Fleet, along with a long-term propaganda drive from Russia within the nation-states of the former Soviet Union. He states:

I think that those people who applied for Russian Federation passport, they wanted to feel themselves as part of the Russian Federation nation and they looked forward for the raise of social security, for the raise of salaries. (Personal interview, April 4, 2016)

He added that there were ‘two reasons to receive passport, either it was the result of propaganda, yes, or it was just practical decision’ (personal interview, April 4, 2016).

By making the passport essential to receiving basic state services, the government has co-opted those who are politically obedient. This co-optation was performed mainly at the individual level by raising pensions from approximately 5100 Roubles they received as Ukrainian citizens ($144 USD) to 10,000 Roubles ($283 USD) they would receive as Russian citizens (Kramer, 2014, March 31). This offer of increased personal financial welfare meant that Russia was able to entice Crimean residents to accept their passport. The Russian passport also ensured that the holder would continue to receive access to public and private services, such as education, healthcare, employment opportunities, etc. within Crimea. These pull factors enabled a sizable, and rapid, distribution of passports to Crimean residents; one interviewee describes the process by which those in Crimea obtained Russian passports as ‘incredibly simple. Although we had to queue for a long time, all we needed to do was prove that we are residents of Crimea and show our Ukrainian passports’ (Dominika, personal interview, April 18, 2016).

In addition to the tempting material attraction of the passport, the potential for a large-scale citizen ‘buy-in’, fundamental to the strategy, is furthermore reliant on the historical linkages between Crimea and the Russian Federation. Measuring the utility of Russian soft power or Russian propaganda is beyond the scope of this research, however, contrary to some perceptions of the occupation of Crimea, the majority of those interviewed here, signalled that significant levels of consent and eagerness by Crimean residents to accept the Russian passport were present.

Legitimation

The second inclusionary aspect of the pasportizatsiya strategy was the potential legitimizing effect this has on Russian state presence within Crimea. The distribution of official documentation to a population is a fundamental administrative and bureaucratic state function. By performing this function, commonly conducted by an established authority to its citizens, the Russian Federation is undeniably acting as the de facto authority even if the de jure position is contested. This process has the obvious potential for legitimizing Russian presence within Crimea, as the relationship between the Russian authorities and the Crimeans is tangibly manifested in the form of the passport. The fact that the Russian Federation has the capacity to distribute its passport to the residents of Crimea may be legitimating its presence as the operative authority. The crux of the legitimizing capabilities of the Russian pasportizatsiya strategy lies in the real and symbolic claims to the people that are made possible by the issuing passports to the populations. Without this document, Russia would be unable to incorporate the Crimeans into their polity so comprehensively and simply.

One defining characteristic of the distribution of Russian passports within Crimea is the speed and volume of this process. During the initial intensive distribution process, Russian ad hoc naturalization and Foreign Migration Service (FMS) offices were erected around the Crimean Peninsula, where passports were distributed in a simplified, expedited process to Crimean citizens in exchange for former Soviet Union documents or upon presentation of their Ukrainian passports. The volume of naturalizations was extremely high; Russian FMS chief, Konstantin Romodanovsky, estimated that by June 2014 over a million Russian passports had been issued and approximately 1.25 million applications submitted (Falaleev, 2014, June 11). The speed of the passport distribution process increased dramatically, from around 13,000 applications a day to 150,000 a day at its peak, with 160 offices processing these naturalizations (Shevel, 2014, April 11).

The reformations to naturalization legislation mentioned previously allowed for this process to be internally compliant and legitimate regardless of its status under international law. The rhetoric from the Kremlin was keen to emphasize this, claiming that Russian activities were legal with ‘democratic compliance’ (Putin, 2014, March 18). Many in Crimea would agree with Putin’s position, that the annexation was not controversial nor illegitimate. Olga, an interviewee from Crimea, for instance, objected to the description of the incorporation of the territory of Crimea into the Russian Federation, as annexation stating: ‘In Crimea, we do not call it the annexation, we call it “returning home to Russia” … I am proud that I now have a Russian passport’ (personal interview, May 3, 2016). Ludmila Balatskaya, a former Sevastopol government employee repeats this sentiment:

Today is the greatest day of my life; we are returning to mother Russia … I was just a little girl when they just informed us that Crimea was now Ukraine. Everything fell down around me. We are Russia, we have always been Russian people in our souls here in Crimea, but today that becomes a practical reality again. (in Salem & Walker, 2014, March 16)

Russian nationalism and the desire to be a part of the Russian nationalistic project was evidently a significant contributing factor to facilitating the pasportizatsiya strategy. Ana clearly expresses this patriotic sentiment:

I am very pleased to have this Russian passport. Now Crimea is back with Russia it is great. We were very scared that Crimea would become like Eastern Ukraine. Russia has a lot of bad criticism, but this is wrong, everyone who criticises Russia in Ukraine is just jealous that they don’t have what we have. (Personal interview, April 27, 2016)

The legitimizing potential of the passport distribution process is inherent in that it is as a display of a state’s reach and functioning, but also in a more calculated form whereby Russia attempted to legitimate their activities by demonizing the Ukrainian authorities through propaganda. Along with some visual manifestations of pro-Russian statements, anti-Ukrainian propaganda was ubiquitous with phrases such as: ‘Stop fascism!’ ‘Everyone vote for the referendum!’. Before the annexation, billboards were displaying the Ukrainian flag with swastikas and linking the Ukrainian army to Nazis; all of which are evidently attempts to de-legitimise the Ukrainian authorities. Although Russia could attract a large proportion of Crimeans with the combination of simplified citizenship legislation, extensive passport distribution, financial and mobility promises and propaganda, some within Crimea were well aware of the effect of the passport and citizenship propaganda involved in the strategy. Lapika, a Crimea resident who vehemently opposed Russian citizenship conferral asserted: ‘we have to not listen to stories Russia tells to try and control people’ (personal interview, April 5, 2016).

Exclusion

It is argued here that the exclusionary elements of Russian pasportizatsiya strategies were akin to a form of administrative repression, whereby political dissidents were excluded from access to the Russian passport and the associated benefits. There has been a tendency for Western media reports from Crimea to essentialize ethnic discrimination by focussing on the divisions between the Crimean Tatars, a Turkic ethnic group with a long history of persecution in Soviet times under Stalin, including a mass deportation in 1944 (Harff & Gurr, 1989), and the ethnic Russians – Russkie. Although the elicited interview responses from the interviewees and other media reports showed that discriminative policies lay predominately within the political realm (Walker, 2015, March 17), this needs to be contextualized by adding that many reports have detailed accounts of persecution of the Crimean Tatar communities (e.g. Roache, 2017, March 28; Walker, 2016, December 12). There may have been ethnic discriminatory elements to the operationalization of pasportizatsiya, but perhaps this was not necessarily the salient issue. From the elicited responses from the interviews conducted with members of the Crimean Tatars, it appears that the process for obtaining Russian citizenship appears to have been, for some, no more difficult than it was for ethnic Russians. As Sabihka states ‘we [Crimean Tatars] had absolutely no problems getting a Russian passport. Anyone who wanted one can get one’ (personal interview, April 5, 2016). Mr Sevechenko confirms this claim by stating, ‘if they [Crimean Tatars] wanted one they can receive one. The process was very simple’ (personal interview, April 5, 2016). However, by queuing for a Russian passport, the Crimeans, whether Tatar or not, were effectively consenting to a Russian future for the peninsula.

For some segments of Crimean society obtaining a Russian passport was an extremely arduous and drawn out process, with multiple administrative obstacles for those who have publicly criticized Russian involvement in Crimea or shown any form of political dissidence or resistance. Many interviewed for this research were denied access to a Russian passport because of their political stance, despite being considered culturally and linguistically Russian – Rossiane, highlighting the arbitrariness of the decisions made by the state in deciding who is to be included and excluded in nationalist projects. Maria, a Crimean political blogger and activist, claims that she ‘was known to the Russian officials’ and that because of this her ‘family were forced to renounce her actions in order to obtain a Russian passport’ (personal interview, April 6, 2016). Yet despite her parents complying with the denunciation of her daughter’s actions she claims, ‘my father’s new Russian passport had to be taken back five times because of mistakes made by the Russians’ (personal interview, April 6, 2016). She considered this to be a deliberate attempt to make the process more difficult for her family because of her past, which effectually exiled her to Kiev, as she refused to accept Russian citizenship. The mistakes on these documents briefly left her father’s property deeds to the family home invalid, along with many other official documents. Sergey did stress ethnic discrimination when reporting problems with the passport distribution process, suggesting that the Russian authorities had deliberately ignored his fellow Tatars from Russian citizenship plans, by making them take many more trips to the bureaucratic offices of the Russian authorities, requiring them to complete more administrative processes than many others in Crimea and ultimately cover more financial costs (personal interview, April 14, 2016). However, when pressed about these problems, they appear to be principally related to the lack of official documentation stating permanent residence, an apparently common feature of many Crimean Tatars, rather than any ethnic discrimination. A human rights NGO employee suggests greater problems for some Crimean Tatars, namely those who consider themselves as Orthodox Muslims as she states, ‘Orthodox Muslims are one percent of the Crimean Tatars population while the number of Orthodox Muslims who are displaced would be around 20 percent or even 30 percent in some areas’ (Kristina, personal interview, April 7, 2016). She estimated that as much as 60% of the internally displaced persons from Crimea are Crimean Tatars. These diverging accounts might reveal a variance in the relationship between the Russian authorities and the Crimean Tatars, which possibly, and in agreement with the findings of Lupu and Peisakhin (2017), be at least partly due to a variation in the levels of activism among the Crimean Tatar community, depending on their family history.

For those without a Russian passport, whether through choice or not, access to health care, banking services, utilities, jobs, and schooling all became heavily restricted. The move to restrict services to only those who received Russian citizenship left some of these individuals feeling like foreigners within their territory of birth, consequently provoking an exodus from Crimea. Yuri from Simferopol recalls:

[There is] no work for non-Russian citizens. It is impossible to get health care treatment and is not possible to get a job as the employers will always want to see a Russian passport. The bank has refused me a loan and my children get treated differently at school. The school has even threatened to kick them out as they are not Russian citizens. The Russian authorities forced my old grandmother to come into the office in February 2015 as they said that the documents relating to her house are now out of date and said that if she doesn’t change for a Russian document than she may lose her house. When I went into the office, the Russians were very aggressive and humiliated me, asking me why I was being stubborn and that I should just stop being a bitch and take Russian citizenship. I am thinking about leaving for Ukraine like the rest of my friends soon. Crimea has changed and everything is getting worse. (Personal interview, April 21, 2016)

Ella stated:

My life in Crimea without this passport became very difficult. I and my son became foreigners in our home city. First, we could visit only private health clinics. We would not get any medical help being foreigners, even in emergency case. That was very dangerous because I have an allergy, so I had to be very careful. Second, my son needed Russian documents to attend the school. I asked the school administration to allow him to finish a school year but he was not admitted to school for the next school year and finally, we had to leave. Also, some utility companies did not sign contracts with me without Russian passport; I could not exchange currency, apply for bank services, buy a SIM-card for my phone. I became nobody in the place where I have been living for more than 30 years. (Personal interview, May 6, 2016)

These stories are shared by many of the interviewees who rejected the legitimacy of the Russian occupation of Crimea by refusing to be naturalized by the Russian state. The passport distribution policy and conferral of Russian citizenship on Crimeans has resulted in large-scale displacements of people as ‘20,000 individuals have moved to mainland Ukraine from the Crimean Peninsula, out of which approximately 10,000 are Crimean Tatars’ (OSCE, 2015, June 19, p. 3), as those who feared for their well-being in a Russian Crimea, felt the need to leave the territory.

While rejecting Russian citizenship was theoretically and legally possible, in practice the process was more complicated than accepting this new citizenship (Krutov, 2014, March 4), and the implications for refusing, severe. Following the introduction on 21 March 2014 of the Article 4(1) of Federal Constitutional Law No. 6-FKZ, which incorporated the Crimean Peninsula into Russian Federal territory under Russian legislation, the residents of Crimea were given one month to declare their intent to remain as Ukrainian citizens, rejecting Russian citizenship (OSCE, 2015, September 17). Many of the interviewees highlighted the difficulties in this process, citing an extreme lack of information and high levels of intimidation and humiliation during the rejection process. Although approximately 3400 Crimeans rejected Russian citizenship (Regnum, 2015, February 3), the following accounts of doing so may be indicative of the position of the Russian Federation takes towards political dissidents. Larisa, who rejected Russian citizenship recalls that the Russian authorities intimidated her and that ‘they said that I was making a mistake and that Russia now is in control [of Crimea]’ (personal interview, April 11, 2016). Some groups combined on Facebook to publish and distribute their Russian citizenship rejection forms. Despite the publication of a document from the Russian Federal Migration Service [FMS] listing 31 locations where this rejection process could take place (Russian Federation, Federal Migration Service, 2015, October 30), NGO employers and others who experienced and completed the process, suggest that there were only around four or five that were in operation. Ella, an interviewee who rejected Russian citizenship, describes the process in detail:

I went to the Federal Migration Office on April 7^th, 2014. I came there around 8 am and there was a long line already. The people who were there told me that they were waiting since 3–4 am. My number was 60 and by 9 am there were about 200 people on the list. They came from different parts of Crimea because the occupants opened only four such “offices” and we were given only one month to refuse the citizenship. I spent all day in the line talking to people (I was served about 4 pm). People shared their stories: some of them just had the Crimean registration but have been living in other parts of Ukraine and did not need Russian passports. Some were like me – they came to show their protest but were uncertain about their future in Crimea without this passport. I reported on Facebook that I was in this ‘office’ and a lot of unknown people asked me to email them a copy of the application form. I scanned it at spent the rest of the time sending the form and the instructions to those who physically could not come to Simferopol. (Personal interview, May 6, 2016)

A similar story is shared by Yuri, who recalls that:

It took me about three days to completely reject the Russian passport but I was quite lucky, some of my friends who like me wanted to reject Russian citizenship took about ten or twelve days. When I joined the queue to refuse the citizenship, I was number 576. I met a Russian military official called Major Khugayev who took a copy of my passport and issued me a document which basically said that I had refused Russian citizenship and that I wanted to remain a Ukrainian citizen. This was only the first step in the long process though, as I then had to apply for the residence permit. To get this, I had to go back to the office once a week for four months from mid-August 2014. The Russian authorities were extremely rude and very slow, they kept making mistakes in the documentation which meant that I had to come back. This happened a lot to many of my friends. They did not want us to stay in Crimea as non-Russian citizens and were trying to pressure us to leave. (Personal interview, April 21, 2016)

The application letter required by the Russian authorities to retain Ukrainian citizenship involved two clauses:

The first one was that the signatory acknowledges that from now on Crimea is an integral part of the Russian Federation, and the second one, that the signatory acknowledges that he is henceforth considered as a foreigner on the Crimean territory, with all of the ensuing consequences. (Dzhemilev, 2015, March 3)

Many of those people who were unable to reject Russian citizenship before the deadline have had Russian citizenship automatically conferred upon them (Coynash, 2014, September 22). Those who did manage to complete this rejection process and continue living in these regions were required to apply for a residency permit, thus effectively making them foreign citizens in their home territory. In accordance with a Russian Federation order on July 19, these residency permits were limited to 5000 for the entirety of Crimea and 400 for Sevastopol, and required proof of residency in Crimea for a date before 18 March 2014 (Russian Federation, Federal Migration Service, 2015, October 30) which proved very difficult for some to obtain (Russian News, 2015, September 25). The lack of information combined with the limited and ultimately insufficient number of these residency permits meant that some had to leave these regions due to administrative hurdles, as they entered into a similar legal situation as foreigners who overstay their visas.

The initial ease of which passports were distributed and obtained was replaced by a virtual bureaucratic shutdown, suggesting that the passport distribution had an ulterior motive. Larisa, a Crimean mother who reluctantly had to apply for a passport to gain access to health care for her child, stated that this process became very challenging:

They [the authorities] have asked me for many many documents, some that I do not have and cannot get now that Crimea is under Russian authority. Every time I go to the office with a new document that they have asked for, they tell me I need more and more documents. They said to me that I should have got one at the beginning and have been abusive. They tell me that life is easier for people like me in Ukraine and maybe I should go to Kiev with my problems. (Personal interview, April 11, 2016)

The cost of obtaining a Russian passport dramatically increased since the initial distribution period from 300 Roubles ($8.50 USD) during the spring of 2014, to around 3500 Roubles ($99 USD) a year later (Goncharenko & Vyshnevefskaya, 2015, March 15). Administration policy also changed to reflect the increasingly restrictive naturalization and passport distribution process: ‘during the transition period, Crimeans were given several privileges – the stamp duty for a new Russian passport, 300 roubles ($8.50 USD), was waived and they were allowed to submit their documents in the original Ukrainian’ (Hartog, 2015, July 9). However, as of January 2015, the situation has changed as: ‘Crimeans have to provide professionally translated and notarized copies of their original Ukrainian documents in Russian – even though Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar are recognized as official languages’ (Hartog, 2015), with significant costs for these additional procedures.

Eventually, President Vladimir Putin declared his intention to prosecute those who did not formally declare their second citizenship. The bill authorized a fine of 200,000 Roubles ($5650 USD) or 400 hours’ community service for Russians who failed to do so and thus included recently naturalized citizens (De Carbonnel, 2014, May 20). In response to the developments in Crimea, both Russia and Ukraine announced plans to prosecute those with dual passports (De Carbonnel, 2014), which could prove to be extremely detrimental to many who rely on their possession of a Ukrainian passport, which a Crimean resident interviewee stated was their ‘coping mechanism’ (Nina, personal interview, April 8, 2016) for the hope of the return of Crimea to Ukraine. The enforcement of this policy thereby creates a legitimacy problem, as regardless of whether the naturalization process and annexations are internationally recognized, in practice, the renouncement of citizenship can be argued to be a legitimate act of self-determination.

A delay in accepting Russian citizenship, or any form of hesitation in willingness to be embraced by Russia through their passport resulted in substantial and costly barriers for some. Those that have endured the most difficult experiences in obtaining Russian passports appear to be those who have actively denounced Russian legitimacy in Crimea or those who initially decided to reject Russian citizenship before reversing that decision. Aneta, an interviewee who struggled to get a passport, stated: ‘the Russians know everything and control everything’ adding it was necessary to apply for citizenship as ‘we don’t have a choice. There were rumours that people would be removed from Crimea without it. We were scared. We just didn’t want war. We felt pressure to get [sic] passport’ (personal interview, March 29, 2016). For these individuals, they have either faced an increased number of bureaucratic tasks resulting in considerable stress, anxiety, and additional time and financial costs. Some of these tasks have been so difficult to fulfil, that these people were effectively barred from receiving a Russian passport. For example, proof of residence in Crimea, which is an official document required for the naturalization process was, for most of those interviewed, not requested during the Russian naturalization process. For some who were hesitant in accepting Russian citizenship, or who present a difficult case to the Russian authorities, this was demanded by the authorities. Registering with the local administrative office, although required in Ukraine, is seldom done (Hartog, 2015, July 9). Russian law stipulated that residency had to be officially documented prior to the passport distribution process beginning (Hartog, 2015); this meant that those who were asked to produce this document, but could not do so, could no longer receive Russian passports or citizenship. This resulted in a form of forced emigration, which seems unlikely to be reversed, as those who have fled as political activists face imprisonment on their return (Tomkiw, 2016, March 19), like those who remained (Liberty Radio, 2017, August 4). This inconsistency in the enforcement of legislation allowed for an additional discriminatory barrier and resulted in exclusionary practices that are not immediately visible upon initial examination of the pasportizatsiya strategy. Although, theoretically, Russian pasportizatsiya within Crimea appears to be capable of operating in an inclusive and indiscriminate manner, in practice the process involved high levels of partiality not only concerning ethnicity but rather a form of political prejudice. Political obedience appeared to trump cultural or ethnic differences.

Conclusion

The distribution of Russian passports to Ukrainian citizens in Crimea provided the Russian Federation with a regime stabilization mechanism, through the population within their new and controversially acquired territorial borders. This passport distribution strategy, or pasportizatsiya, can be seen as a continuation of the Soviet practice which was conducted to spatially control a population, which underwent an externalization following the collapse of the Soviet Union as Russia operationalized the strategy in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and on a smaller scale, within pre-annexation Crimea (Grigas, 2016). Whether this is a simple case of a return to the internalization of the practice or continuing externalization problematic, the result has been a control of both the Crimean population and the territory of Crimea itself.

The three pillars of authoritarian regime stabilization proposed by Gerschewski (2013): (1) co-optation, (2) legitimation, and (3) repression are all evident in this practice. The expedited and simplified mass naturalization and passport distribution process potentially legitimated Russian presence in Crimea, as Russia first began to perform state bureaucratic and administrative functions. Although this contemporary manifestation of the strategy implemented in 2014 within Crimea was supported by an official rhetoric proclaiming its legality and democratic credentials and despite this practice having the potential to be, legally and theoretically indiscriminate in nature, the operationalization of a policy to distribute passports to a newly and controversially acquired populous occurred with significant exclusionary elements. For the politically obedient, the Russian passport brought enticements in the form of significant pension increases, promises of heightened mobility opportunities, and access to private and public services. This sector of the population was co-opted by the Russian state accordingly. For the segments of society, who exercised civil liberties and freedom of speech, access to the Russian state citizenship regime was refused. This resulted in great barriers to sustainable life within Crimea, a form of a repression through administrative exclusion. Likewise, for some of the Orthodox Muslims of Crimea, who apparently are not considered worthy of Russian citizenship, denial of access to a Russian passport is akin to a bordering and segregating mechanism, resulting in large-scale emigration from the Crimean Peninsula. Those who successfully rejected Russian naturalization faced the same issues as those barred from the offer of conferral, with increasingly restricted access to public and private services. The result has been a civic cleanse and political homogenization of Crimean society, as those who are opposed to the Russian state were excluded from life in Crimea.

Interpreting a passport distribution process as an authoritarian instrument might appear to be paradoxical, but perhaps this might explain its utility to the Russian Federation. The passport here can be seen as being positioned between embrace and control; the embracing elements are obvious for those deemed desirable to the Russian Federation, these groups were enticed through the promise of material benefits which was enabled by significant ‘buy-in’ from the population. This ‘embrace’ of the political obedient, when combined with the exclusion of the undesirable political dissidents, resulted in Russian regime stabilization in Crimea and control of the territory and population.

Although beyond the scope of this research, Russian pasportizatsiya strategies appear to be continuing elsewhere, most notably in Estonia and Latvia. This, therefore, demands research efforts to discover how these strategies will affect EU member state’s political stability, and what similarities and differences are existent between the mechanisms and consequences of Russian passport distribution within these EU and NATO states and the situation in Crimea.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Marlies Glasius and Adele Del Sordi for their continued support, guidance and constructive criticisms throughout the writing process; without them, this would have not been possible. The author is also indebted to Darshan Vigneswaran, who helped him develop this research from its inception as an idea, to its current form. The author would also like to thank those who provided thoughtful and thorough criticisms during the anonymous review process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Sam Wrighton http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2940-049X

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the project ‘Authoritarianism in a Global Age’ at the University of Amsterdam and received funding from the European Research Council (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC grant agreement no 323899. www.authoritarianism-global.uva.nl

Notes on contributors

Sam Wrighton

Notes on contributor

Sam Wrighton is a junior researcher in the Department of Political Sciences at the University of Amsterdam. He has recently joined the University of Oxford’s DPhil in International Relations programme. His research interests include diaspora engagement, nationalism, territory, and sovereignty with a current focus on Hungary and Russia.