Kyiv, Ukraine – Taras at all times resented his dark-red Russian passport – and was completely satisfied to interchange it with a blue Ukrainian one. But it surely was a course of that took him 11 years and two trials.
He’s one in every of greater than 150,000 Russian nationals residing in Ukraine because the warfare with Russia continues. Most are relations or spouses of Ukrainians or had been born in Ukraine. Some are dissidents in search of refuge or volunteers with the Ukrainian military.
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They undergo a number of rounds of bureaucratic quagmire to have their residence permits renewed or get Ukrainian citizenship, and face mistreatment wherever they’ve to indicate the color of their passport.
“You probably have a purple passport right here, you’re not human, even when you’ve got Ukrainian blood, communicate Ukrainian and donate to the armed forces of Ukraine,” the bespectacled 45-year-old graphic designer instructed Al Jazeera.
Taras requested to withhold his final identify that he shares together with his siblings residing in Russia, as a result of he doesn’t need them to “get into extra bother than they already are” due to their Ukrainian background.
Born within the metropolis of Poltava in Soviet Ukraine in 1980, Taras, the son of a colonel, grew up 500km (310 miles) to the east, in what’s now the western Russian metropolis of Bryansk; his father headed a tank regiment.
He spent his summers in a village outdoors Poltava, the place his grandparents taught him to talk Ukrainian and “be a daily Cossack”, Taras mentioned with a smile, referring to the medieval warrior caste.
He obtained the Russian passport after turning 16 and studied artwork historical past and design in St Petersburg, Russia’s former imperial capital and President Vladimir Putin’s hometown.
With a contract job to design brochures, posters and calendars, he determined to maneuver to Poltava a 12 months after Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.
Getting residence papers and a “allow emigrate” and acquiring citizenship was straightforward, however he made a mistake of “procrastinating for too lengthy” about getting the blue passport.
“That was a silly mistake that price me plenty of time, cash and nerves,” Taras sighed.
“I nagged him day-after-day for years, however he waited till the full-scale [invasion] started” in 2022, his spouse Tetiana, whom he married in 2019, instructed Al Jazeera.
Kyiv instantly severed diplomatic ties with Moscow, complicating a key situation for Taras’s full-fledged Ukrainian citizenship.
Till June 2025, Ukraine banned twin citizenship, and aspiring nationals had two years to show they’d withdrawn from their earlier citizenship.
Within the case of Russians, they should show they face no legal or administrative expenses, haven’t any debt and aren’t registered in someone’s residence or home.
To submit and get the papers, Taras took an in a single day prepare to neighbouring Moldova, the place Russian embassy officers snubbed his requests, “misplaced” his papers and whispered “traitor” and “fascist”, Taras mentioned.
He was luckier than many different Russians residing in Ukraine.
There have been circumstances of Ukraine’s migration companies refusing to resume expired residence permits, Kyiv-based migration lawyer Daria Tarasenko instructed Al Jazeera.
The stranded Russians’ issues worsen when their passport expires. It takes as much as three journeys to a 3rd nation to resume it, submit it and obtain the paperwork to get the passport they hope to desert quickly.
And if the two-year deadline isn’t met, there have been circumstances when the migration service strips individuals of their Ukrainian citizenship, Tarasenko mentioned.
She mentioned she had gained two circumstances when courts deemed the selections unlawful, and a number of other related circumstances had been pending.
In late 2024, the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s decrease home of parliament, voted to alter the migration regulation, permitting Russian nationals to attend for the warfare’s finish plus another month to start out the termination of their purple passports, she mentioned.
By that point, Taras was bored with trains to Moldova and infinite bickering contained in the Russian embassy’s sprawling, white constructing.
He was instructed {that a} “declarative rejection” of his Russian citizenship may suffice, however the migration companies rejected his “declaration”.
He sued them, and a courtroom dominated that he may lastly get the blue passport.
The Poltava migration service disagreed, and Taras sued once more. This time, the courtroom dominated that the officers in command of issuing his passport must be fined.
“And as quickly because it turned cash out of their pocket, they had been like, ‘Good, come get the passport,’” Taras mentioned.
He did – final August.
He can’t be drafted due to extreme, progressing myopia coupled with astigmatism, whereas many different males with Russian passports favor to carry on to their residence permits and procure their Ukrainian passports after the warfare.
Others are so determined that they resort to symbolic vandalism.
In early January, Andriy Kramar, an promoting government in Kyiv, burned his spouse Valery’s Russian passport on a fuel range within the kitchen of their residence in Hostomel, a suburb that was briefly seized by Russia in 2022.
They reside with their new child daughter, Oleksandra, amid days-long blackouts brought on by Russian shelling and with no operating water.
“That alone may drive you loopy,” he instructed Al Jazeera.
Kramar posted the video of the burning passport on Fb, tagging Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration and including: “Give my spouse a standard passport!”
