To Help ‘Brotherly People’? Russian Policy Towards Ukrainian Refugees

Abstract

The essay focuses on Russian policy towards displaced persons from Ukraine’s war-torn territories from 2014 until mid-2019. The privileging of refugees from Ukraine relative to immigrants and refugees from other countries and, later, the granting of Russian citizenship to Ukrainian citizens from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, were interwoven with both influence-seeking in the Russian geopolitical neighbourhood and transborder nationalism and supported via direct presidential control of immigration. Despite a series of decrees and involvement of civil society in providing support, this essay detected a lack of efficient mechanisms for responding to the needs of the displaced.

Notes

1 Russia has granted refugee status to only 0.2% of Syrians who have entered Russia to claim asylum (Denisova 2018; see also Kubal 2016). According to UNHRC, on 1 July 2019, among 61,948 people with temporary asylum status in Russia, only 1,755 were not Ukrainian citizens (mostly from Syria and Afghanistan) (UNHCR 2019).

2 According to the 1989 Soviet census, the number of Russians living in Soviet republics other than the Russian Federation was 25.289 million (‘Vsesoyuznaya perepis’ naseleniya 1989 goda. Natsional’nyi sostav naseleniya po respublikam SSSR’, Demoscope Weekly, 2019, available at: http://www.demoscope.ru/weekly/ssp/sng_nac_89.php?reg=0, accessed 20 May 2019).

3 Forcibly displaced people and refugees have been officially registered since July 1992, after the establishment of the Russian Federal Migration Service. However, before laws on refugees and forcibly displaced people were adopted in February 1993, these categories were combined (Mkrtchayn 2002).

4 ‘Gosudarstvennaya programma po okazaniyu sodeistviya dobrovol’nomu pereseleniyu v Rossiiskuyu Federatsiyu sootechestvennikov, prozhivayushchikh za rubezhom’, approved by Decree No. 637 of President Putin, 22 June 2006, available at: http://www.ruvek.ru/?module=docs&action=view&id=724, accessed 24 July 2018.

5 Interviews with Olivia and Christina (pseudonyms), humanitarian aid experts, Moscow, March 2017.

6 Postanovlenie Pravitel’stva Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 22 iyulya 2014 g. N 690 Moskva ‘O predostavlenii vremennogo ubezhishcha grazhdanam Ukrainy na territorii Rossiiskoi Federatsii v uproshchennom poryadke’, available at: https://rg.ru/2014/07/24/bejency-site-dok.html, accessed 26 June 2017.

7 ‘V Rossii prodolzhayut deistvovat’ 47 PVR dlya bezhentsev s Ukrainy’, RIA Novosti, 27 October 2016, available at: https://ria.ru/society/20161027/1480119047.html, accessed 20 November 2016.

8 ‘V Rossii prodolzhayut deistvovat’ 47 PVR dlya bezhentsev s Ukrainy’, RIA Novosti, 27 October 2016, available at: https://ria.ru/society/20161027/1480119047.html, accessed 20 November 2016.

9 ‘Grazhdanskaya voina na Ukraine: mysli, chuvstva, emotsii rossiyan’, Russian Public Opinion Research Centre, 31 June 2014, available at: https://wciom.ru/index.php?id=236&uid=753, accessed 18 May 2017.

10 Interview with male, 48 years old, resident in Kazan, Russia, September 2016.

11 Interview with a director of a charitable foundation, Kazan, August 2016.

12 ‘Bezhentsy s Ukrainy v Rossii smogut rasschityvat’ na adresnuyu finansovuyu pomoshch’’, Pervyi kanal, 19 June 2014, available at: https://www.1tv.ru/news/2014-06-19/44183-bezhentsy_s_ukrainy_v_rossii_smogut_rasschityvat_na_adresnuyu_finansovuyu_pomosch, accessed 10 November 2016.

13 See, for example, ‘Zasedanie Soveta po razvitiyu grazhdanskogo obshchestva i pravam cheloveka’, President of Russia, 14 October 2014, available at: http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/46786, accessed 3 December 2019.

14 ‘Zakharchenko obvinil rezhim Poroshenko v samoi massovoi posle VOV gibeli naseleniya Donbassa’, TASS, 22 May 2018, available at: http://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/5222220, accessed 3 December 2019.

15 ‘Samoprovozglashennye DNR i LNR soglashayutsya na shirochayshchyu avtonomiyu’, Kommersant’’, 13 May 2015, available at: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2725314, accessed 29 October 2017.

16 ‘Donetskie yuristy gotovyat “Vtoroi Nyurnberg”’, Komsomol’skaya pravda, 12 August 2015, available at: https://www.kp.ru/daily/26418/3292160/, accessed 29 October 2017.

17 ‘About Three Million Ukrainians Currently Live in Russia, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has Said’, Ukrinform, 23 April 2018, available at: https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-polytics/2446967-almost-three-million-ukrainians-live-in-russia-klimkin.html, accessed 1 June 2018.

18 ‘Revenko o zayavlenii Klimkina: eto genotsid sobstvennogo naroda’, Vesti, 23 April 2018, available at: https://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=3010410, accessed 1 June 2018.

19 ‘Ex-head of Ukraine Library in Moscow Natalia Sharina Guilty’, BBC, 5 June 2017, available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40162173, accessed 10 September 2017.

20 ‘Ukrainskii kongress Rossii schitaet otkaz v registratsii davleniem na ukrainskuyu diasporu’, 112ua, 8 July 2014, available at: https://112.ua/politika/ukrainskiy-kongress-rossii-schitaet-otkaz-v-registracii-davleniem-na-ukrainskuyu-diasporu-84775.html, accessed 15 October 2017.

21 ‘Zhurnalistu Viktoru Girzhovu zapreshchen v'’ezd v Rossiyu’, RFI/RL, 14 October 2015, available at: https://www.svoboda.org/a/27305675.html, accessed 15 October 2017.

22 ‘General’naya prokuratura Rossiiskoi Federatsii prinyala reshenie o priznanii nezhelatel’noi na territorii Rossiiskoi Federatsii deyatel’nosti mezhdunarodnoi nepravitel’stvennoi organizatsii’, General’naya prokuratura Rossiiskoi Federatsii, 11 July 2019, available at: https://genproc.gov.ru/smi/news/genproc/news-1653516/, accessed 16 July 2019.

23 This is compounded by the context, which was described by Victor Girzhov, the former head of the association ‘Ukrainians of Moscow’ and initiator of Ukrainian Congress, as the assimilation of Ukrainians within a dominant culture (Glukhovsky 2015). Official statistics confirm this latter proposition: between 2002 and 2010, the number of ethnic Ukrainians decreased from over 2.9 million to 1.92 million (Rosstat 2010).

24 Interview with an activist belonging to one of the ethnic associations in Russia, July 2016. The location and organisation are not provided here because of confidentiality requirements.

25 Interview with a public official, Vladivostok, October 2016.

26 ‘Kak fond Konstantina Malofeeva pomogaet Novorossii’, RBC.ru, 8 September 2014, available at: https://www.rbc.ru/politics/08/09/2014/5424884bcbb20f18b6e4b903, accessed 20 December 2016.

27 See, for example, Crotty et al. (2014) and Stewart and Dollbaum (2017).

28 ‘One Year With “Foreign Agent” Label’, Civic Assistance Committee, 16 May 2016, available at: https://refugee.ru/en/news/one-year-with-foreign-agent-label/, accessed 11 July 2019.

29 Interview with Svetlana Gannushkina, head of the Civil Assistance Committee, Moscow, April 2017.

30 Skype interview with a representative of a human rights NGO, Kaluga, January 2018.

31 Interview with an academic expert in immigration policy, Moscow, July 2017.

32 ‘GDP (Current US$)—Russian’, The World Bank, available at: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?end=2018&locations=RU&start=1988&view=chart, accessed 18 December 2019.

33 ‘FMS: prodolzhaet rasti chislo grazhdan Ukrainy, pereezzhayushchikh v Rossiyu’, RIA Novosti, 28 January 2016, available at: https://ria.ru/20160128/1366392744.html, accessed 18 January 2018.

34 See also Kubal (2016).

35 ‘Putin prizval ne dopustit’ v Rossii situatsiyu s nezakonnoi migratsiei, kak v ES’, RIA Novosti, 15 March 2016, available at: https://ria.ru/20160315/1390339905.html?in=t, accessed 15 December 2016.

36 ‘Valentina Matvienko: bez RF ne reshit’ ni odnoi mezhdunarodnoi problemy’, RIA Novosti, 25 March 2015, available at: https://ria.ru/20160325/1396761678.html, accessed 15 December 2016.

37 Interview with Svetlana Gannushkina, head of the NGO Civil Assistance Committee, Moscow, April 2017.

38 Pravitel’stvo Rossiiskoi Federatsii. Postanovlenie ot 22 iyulya 2014 g. N 690, ‘O predostavlenii vremennogo ubezhishcha grazhdanam Ukrainy na territorii Rossiiskoi Federatsii v uproshchennom poryadke’, available at: http://government.ru/media/files/41d4f3a5c06af7f5f50e.pdf, accessed 18 January 2018.

39 Pravitel’stvo Rossiiskoi Federatsii. Postanovlenie ot 22 iyulya 2014 g. N 691, ‘Ob utverzhdenii raspredeleniya po sub”ektam Rossiisko’ Federatsii grazhdan Ukrainy i lits bez grazhdanstva, postoyanno prozhivayushchikh na territorii Ukrainy i pribyvshikh na territoriiyu Rossiiskoi Federatsii v ekstrennom massovom poryadke’, available at: http://static.government.ru/media/files/41d4f3a61bb7c28f744d.pdf, accessed 18 January 2018. An application for temporary asylum could be submitted at the local office of the former Federal Migration Service (FMS) or at one of the regional centres specially set up for Ukrainian refugees.

40 ‘O polozhenii bezhentsev i lits, ishchushchikh ubezhishche, iz Ukrainy v sub”yektakh Rossiiskoi Federatsii (1 noyabrya 2014–1 maya 2015)’, Migration and Law, unpublished report, 2015, p. 1.

41 Postanovleniye Pravitel’stva Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 22 iyulya 2014 g. N 691, ‘Ob utverzhdenii raspredeleniya po sub”ektam Rossiisko' Federatsii grazhdan Ukrainy i lits bez grazhdanstva, postoyanno prozhivayushchikh na territorii Ukrainy i pribyvshikh na territoriiyu Rossiiskoi Federatsii v ekstrennom massovom poryadke’, available at: http://static.government.ru/media/files/41d4f3a61bb7c28f744d.pdf, accessed 18 January 2018.

42 ‘O polozhenii bezhentsev i lits, ishchushchikh ubezhishche, iz Ukrainy v sub”yektakh Rossiiskoi Federatsii (1 noyabrya 2014–1 maya 2015)’, Migration and Law unpublished report, 2015, p. 2.

43 Federal’nyi zakon ot 19 fevralya 1993 g. N 4528-I ‘O bezhentsakh’ (s izmeneniyami i dopolneniyami).

44 ‘General'naya prokuratura Rossiiskoi Federatsii prinyala resheniye o priznanii nezhelatel’noi na territorii Rossiiskoi Federatsii deyatel’nosti mezhdunarodnoi nepravitel’stvennoi organizatsii’, General’naya Prokuratura Rossiiskoi Federatsii, March 2016, available at: https://мвд.рф/Deljatelnost/emvd/guvm/признание-беженцем, accessed 30 May 2017.

45 The programme has been formally introduced through the approval of Decree No. 637 of the President of the Russian Federation of 22 June 2006. It aims to regulate ‘the stimulation and organisation of the process of voluntary resettlement of compatriots in Russia, the promotion of socio-economic development of regions and the solution of demographic problems, primarily in areas of priority settlement by attracting immigrants to a permanent place of residence the Russian Federation’ (The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, Osnovnye tseli i printsipy programmy, available at: https://xn--b1aew.xn--p1ai/mvd/structure1/Glavnie_upravlenija/guvm/compatriots/osnovnie-celi-i-principi, accessed 15 July 2019). In 2019, 76 Federal Subjects of the Russian Federation participated in the programme. Subjects of the Russian Federation have developed regional programmes to facilitate voluntary resettlement. Applications to take part in the programme can also be made from abroad via Russian diplomatic missions and consulates of the Russian Federation (‘Gosudarstvennaya programma po okazaniyu sodeystviya dobrovol'nomu pereseleniyu v Rossiiskuyu Federatsiyu sootechestvennikov, prozhivayushchikh za rubezhom’, Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, available at: https://xn--b1aew.xn--p1ai/mvd/structure1/Glavnie_upravlenija/guvm/compatriots, accessed 19 December 2019).

46 Ukaz Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 22.06.2006 g. N 637 ‘Gosudarstvennaya programma po okazaniyu sodeistviya dobrovol’nomu pereseleniyu v Rossiiskuyu Federatsiyu sootechestvennikov, prozhivayushchikh za rubezhom’, available at: http://kremlin.ru/acts/bank/23937, accessed 17 January 2018.

47 Postanovlenie Pravitel’stva RF ot 08.10.2014 N 1032 (red. ot 15.06.2016) ‘Ob organizatsii raboty s sootechestvennikami, postoyanno prozhivayushchimi na territorii Ukrainy, pribyvshimi na territoriyu Rossiiskoi Federatsii, poluchivshimi vremennoye ubezhishche v Rossiiskoi Federatsii i zhelayushchimi prinyat’ uchastiye v Gosudarstvennoi programme po okazaniyu sodeistviya dobrovol’nomu pereseleniyu v Rossiiskuyu Federatsiyu sootechestvennikov, prozhivayushchikh za rubezhom’, available at: https://media.mvd.ru/files/embed/1294074, accessed 29 June 2018.

48 ‘Gosduma v pervom chtenii prinyala zakonoproekt o pereezde sootechestvennikov v DFO’, TASS, 4 July 2018, available at: http://tass.ru/v-strane/5348261, accessed 18 July 2018.

49 See also Myhre (2018b), Kuznetsova (2018).

50 Ukaz Prezidenta RF ot 18.02.2017 N 74 ‘O Priznanii v Rossiiskoi Federatsii Dokumentov i Registratsionnykh Znakov Transportnyh Sredstv, Vydannykh Grazhdanam Ukrainy i Litsam bez Grazhdanstva, Postoyanno Prozhivayushchim na Territoriyakh Otdel’nykh Raionov Donetskoi i Luganskoi Oblastei Ukrainy’, Ministry of Internal Affairs, available at: https://mvd.consultant.ru/documents/1056150?items=1&page=1, accessed 20 January 2018.

51 ‘Poroshenko: vyznannya pasportіv “DNR”—dokaz rosіis'koi okupatsii’, BBC News Ukraine, 18 February 2017, available at: https://www.bbc.com/ukrainian/vert-fut-39015518, accessed 25 February 2017.

52 ‘Putіn yurydychno vyznav terorystychnі uhrupovannya “LNR” ta “DNR”—Turchynov’, UNIAN, 18 February 2017, available at: https://www.unian.ua/politics/1784501-putin-yuridichno-viznav-teroristichni-ugrupovannya-lnr-ta-dnr-turchinov.html, accessed 25 February 2017.

53 ‘Meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club’, President of Russia, 19 October 2017, available at: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/55882, accessed 16 November 2017.

54 ‘Putin poruchil pomoch’ bezhentsam iz Donbassa’, RIA Novosti, 26 June 2018, available at: https://ria.ru/society/20180626/1523394554.html, accessed 27 June 2018.

55 ‘V Gosdumu vnesli proekt o migratsionnoi amnistii dlya bezhentsev s Ukrainy’, TASS, 25 June 2018, available at: http://tass.ru/politika/5321852, accessed 26 June 2018. The draft bill on an amnesty for Ukrainian refugees was introduced in the Russian Duma in June 2018.

56 Federal’nyi zakon ot 27.12.2018 N 544-FZ ‘O vnesenii izmenenii v Federal’nyi zakon “O grazhdanstve Rossiiskoi Federatsii”’, available at: http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/0001201812280032?index=2&rangeSize=1, accessed 10 January 2019.

57 Ukaz Prezidenta Rossiskoi Federatsii ‘Ob opredelenii v gumanitarnykh tselyakh kategorii lits, imeyushchikh pravo obratit’sya s zayavleniyami o prieme v grazhdanstvo Rossiiskoi Federatsii v uproshchennom poryadke’, 24 April 2019, available at: http://pravo.gov.ru/laws/acts/32/495651.html, accessed 30 April 2019. As of 17 July 2019, about 13,000 Ukrainian citizens had applied for citizenship via this route (Tretyakova 2019).

58 ‘Statement by the Spokesperson on the Russian Decree Enabling the Simplified Issuing of Passports in Certain Areas of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk Regions’, European Union External Action, 25 April 2019, available at: https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage/61444/statement-spokesperson-russian-decree-enabling-simplified-issuing-passports-certain-areas_en, accessed 30 May 2019.

59 Personal Facebook page of Volodymyr Zelenskyi, 27 April 2019, available at: https://www.facebook.com/zelenskiy95/posts/2236347569948940, accessed 8 June 2019.

60 ‘Putin otvetil na slova Zelenskogo o pasportakh dlya rossiyan’, Ria Novosti, 29 April 2019, available at: https://ria.ru/20190429/1553165543.html, accessed 5 May 2019.

61 Ukaz ‘O vnesenii izmenenii v Ukaz Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 29 aprelya 2019 g. N 187 ‘Ob otdel'nyh kategoriyakh inostrannykh grazhdan i lits bez grazhdanstva, imeyushchikh pravo obratit'sya s zayavleniyami o prieme v grazhdanstvo Rossiiskoi Federatsii v uproshhennom poryadke’, available at: http://static.kremlin.ru/media/events/files/ru/P5fha7h9zoa5l2JrLlB2bzAmGe55YESz.pdf, accessed 18 July 2019.

62 Federal’nyi zakon ot 02.08.2019 N 257-FZ ‘O vnesenii izmenenii v Federal'nyi zakon “O pravovom polozhenii inostrannykh grazhdan v Rossiiskoi Federatsii” v chasti uproshheniya poryadka predostavleniya nekotorym kategoriyam inostrannykh grazhdan i lits bez grazhdanstva razresheniya na vremennoe prozhivanie i vida na zhitel'stvo’, available at: http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/0001201908020030?index=3&rangeSize=1, accessed 15 August 2019.

63 ‘Ukraintsev i belorusov priznayut nositelyami russkogo yazyka bez ekzamena’, Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 19 October 2019, available at: https://rg.ru/2019/10/19/ukraincev-i-belorusov-priznaiut-nositeliami-russkogo-iazyka-bez-ekzamenov.html, accessed 30 October 2019.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Irina Kuznetsova

Irina Kuznetsova, School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK. Email: [email protected]