Russia’s Forced Passport Scheme

Yulia Kalaban

Journalist & author

Thursday, 18 September, 2025

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For nearly two years living under occupation in the south-eastern Ukrainian city of Nova Kakhovka, Volodymyr refused to take a Russian passport, even though this meant he was denied access to a range of vital services.

The 54-year-old tried to escape twice, but without documents found it impossible to find a way out of occupied territory. 

Finally, after being arrested over his lack of documents, Volodymyr was accused of “anti-Russian activities” and thrown into in a makeshift detention centre.

After three weeks of torture, he finally relented, applying for a Russian passport as a means of escape.

“The passport was no longer a symbol of allegiance, but a travel ticket,” he said. 

At the Ukrainian border, he recalled, a guard asked him, “A year and eight months under occupation and you have a red passport?”

“Look at the date,” Volodymyr replied. “This passport is 20 days old. I got it as my ticket out.”

Volodymyr is one of many thousands of Ukrainians forced to accept Russian citizenship in what some legal experts argue may account to a war crime. 

Following the full-scale invasion, Russia replicated the system it had instituted in Crimea; residents of the occupied territories needed a Russian-issued passport to receive pensions, salaries and medical care or to register property rights. While the process was voluntary on paper, in reality it became a prerequisite for survival.

Bohdan (not his real name), a 35-year-old from Mariupol, also initially refused a passport. One day, a neighbour reported him to the Russian military for criticising the occupation authorities. Soldiers stormed his house, threatening to cut off his limbs and genitals and to kill his dog. Bohdan survived but was severely injured. At the hospital, he was required to provide an insurance policy, which could only be obtained with a Russian passport. This meant he finally had to capitulate and accept Russian citizenship. He remains in Mariupol, suffering from poor physical and mental health as a result of his ordeal.

According to legal expert Yurii Melnyk, head of Foundation for European and Security Studies NGO, issuing passports is not in itself a crime under the Rome Statute, the founding document of the International Criminal Court (ICC). However, when a person is tortured or illegally imprisoned to force them to accept another country’s passport, it becomes a war crime. 

“Such actions fall under the UN Convention against Torture and can be used as evidence in the ICC,” he explained.

Political scientist Leonid Chuprii argued that even without physical torture, the systemic psychological pressure to obtain a passport ruled out any possibility of it being voluntary. Such practices could be classified not only as war crimes but also as crimes against humanity, he continued. 

“International law is clear on this,” Chuprii said. “For example, the Hague Convention on the Laws and Customs of War on Land contains articles that explicitly prohibit forcing individuals to swear allegiance to an occupying power. The Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians also forbids cruel treatment and violence.”

Oath of Allegiance

In October 2022, following the declared annexation of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk de facto republics, Russia began issuing citizenship under a simplified procedure that required only an application and an oath of allegiance. Children automatically received passports along with their parents. In May 2022, this was extended to residents of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

According to Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, approximately 2.2 million residents of these territories received documents in just one year. However, as Serhii Lyshenko, a deputy of the Zaporizhzhia Oblast Council, told Radio Svoboda, these figures were likely inflated to report back to Moscow and secure additional funding.

In 2023, the Kremlin officially began treating Ukrainians in the occupied territories as foreigners. Without a Russian passport, residents were denied access to healthcare, employment and freedom of movement.

The pressure was particularly acute for schoolchildren and their families. In Mariupol, authorities refused to issue high school diplomas to graduates without a Russian passport, while in the Luhansk region, even parents needed to produce these documents. For many, obtaining a Russian passport became the only way to continue their education.

Ivan (not his real name), from the Kherson region, recalls being forced to obtain the document at 16 so as to finish school. 

“In the end, everyone gave in. There was no other way,” he said. Ivan, now 18, left immediately after finishing his studies to live and works in Kyiv.

In some occupied cities, Russian authorities also coerced parents into accepting Russian passports by threatening to strip them of their parental rights.

“Such cases constitute forced assimilation and violate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which protects a child’s right to preserve their identity, including citizenship, name and family ties,” Melnyk said. “Threats to take a child away for refusing a passport can be classified as a war crime under Article 8 of the Rome Statute.”

For young men, the passport becomes a trap: upon receiving the document, they are automatically placed on the military register and risk being sent to fight against Ukraine.

“The Hague Convention on the laws and customs of war forbids compelling a person to participate in military operations against their own country. Furthermore, the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons (Article 51) prohibits compulsory service in the aggressor’s army,” said Chuprii.

Last year, Russian authorities began passing laws that effectively stripped Ukrainians of their rights if they did not have a Russian passport or a residence permit from the occupying authorities. And this year, the Kremlin issued an ultimatum: either obtain a Russian passport or leave. 

Those who refused faced deportation, arrest or confiscation of property. In parallel, a re-registration of property under Russian law was introduced. Without a Russian passport, ownership was put at risk, effectively forcing people to accept citizenship to avoid losing their homes.

 “The destruction and appropriation of property without military necessity is pillage, which is explicitly defined as a war crime under Article 8 of the Rome Statute,” said Melnyk. “Similar cases have been tried by international courts – from Nuremberg to the tribunals in The Hague concerning Bosnia, Rwanda and Congo. After de-occupation, Ukraine can pass a law to restore property rights, or victims can reclaim them through the courts.”

According to British intelligence estimates, Russia had issued at least 3.5 million passports in the occupied territories by early 2025. On March 4, Putin announced the completion of the process.

As of August 21, 2024, Ukraine has ratified the Rome Statute, empowering the International Criminal Court to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on its territory.

Experts note that while the perpetrators of this process may be identified and prosecuted, enforcing sentences remains a significant challenge. 

Ukrainian law enforcement authorities are actively documenting instances of forced passportisation and compiling a database to be submitted to international judicial bodies. 

“The proceedings take years, but a verdict will eventually be reached,” Chuprii said. “We already have precedents, such as the arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova over the deportation of Ukrainian children.

“But there’s an obstacle: Russia does not extradite its own citizens. Therefore, arrests are realistically only possible if they travel outside the Russian Federation. In many cases, true accountability will only come after a change in the political regime.”