A 21-year-old Kherson resident, Oleksandr, could not obtain Russian citizenship because of the Ukrainian new-format ID passport.
This was reported by pro-Russian media.
According to the young man, in 2023 he received an ID card in Ukraine instead of a paper passport. After arriving in Russia, the document could not be verified at one of the Ministry of Internal Affairs units in Krasnodar due to the lack of software to read such passports. As a result, the ID card was confiscated, declared “not compliant with the technologies,” and a criminal case was opened on suspicion of document forgery.
Without the Ukrainian passport, the certificate of Kherson registration — which is required to apply for Russian citizenship under the simplified procedure — also became invalid.
Oleksandr said that in 2025 he left Ukraine, crossed five borders, and entered Russia, where his parents who fled Kherson live in Krasnodar. His father has Russian citizenship, but this did not help resolve the situation. According to the young man, he was effectively left without documents and legal status.
“I want to be a citizen of the Russian Federation and have a Russian passport,” he said.