Ukrainian nationality law

The Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR) established Ukrainian citizenship for the first time when it adopted citizenship laws on 2 and 4 March 1918, just as Soviet Russia recognized the UPR's independence under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The laws instituted jus soli, prohibited dual citizenship, and required "registration of citizenship through the process of proving one's right to citizenship through witnesses." The legislation was vulnerable to "undemocratic" abuse, and many provisions were "incorrectly formulated" so as to make compliance impossible. Therefore, the Central Council planned a revision.[4]

The German-backed Ukrainian State seized control in April and adopted a law based on the UPR's proposed changes on 2 July.[4][5][6] This law claimed as citizens all Russian subjects who resided in Ukraine and did not formally reject Ukrainian citizenship.[5][6] The UPR resumed power in December.[7] The autonomous Western Oblast of the UPR, whose territory remained in dispute with Poland, saw citizenship legislation enacted on 8 April 1919. This law likewise conferred citizenship on everyone who belonged to one of the oblast's communities and who did not reject it.[6][8]

Poland occupied most of the Western Oblast's territory by July, and the UPR recognized the territory as part of Poland in April 1920.[9][10] In September of the same year, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the UPR, then in exile in Tarnów, stated in a letter that the Ukrainian State citizenship law remained valid.[6] By November, the UPR had conclusively lost the last of its territory, which was divided in 1921 between Poland and the Ukrainian SSR.[11]

The Ukrainian SSR became a republic of the Soviet Union in 1922.[12] The 1924 Constitution of the Soviet Union affirmed "single Union citizenship" for the citizens of all Union republics.[13] The 1929 Ukrainian SSR Constitution stated that all Ukrainian SSR citizens were also Union citizens.[14] Despite this mention, the separate citizenships of Union republics such as the Ukrainian SSR were neither legislated on nor documented. Thus, Ukrainian SSR citizenship had no practical consequences and its existence was dubious.[15] Successive Soviet constitutions and laws maintained this arrangement.[15][16][17][18][19]

The Soviet Union allowed the Union republics to make laws to govern their own citizenships beginning May 1990.[20] The Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine, adopted 16 July, established Ukrainian SSR citizenship independent of and alongside Union citizenship, and envisaged further legislation to govern the acquisition and loss of this new citizenship.[21][22][23] Ukraine declared independence from the Soviet Union on 24 August 1991.[24]

In the Verkhovna Rada, factions of nationalists, unreformed Communists, and the former nomenklatura in power supported different citizenship policies. The nationalists wanted citizenship for all ethnic Ukrainians. The Communists desired no independent citizenship or, when the collapse of the Soviet Union loomed, dual citizenship with Russia. Both nationalists and the nomenklatura disfavored dual citizenship. They feared that Russia would grant its own citizenship to Ukrainian citizens to justify intervention in Ukraine on behalf of Russian dual citizens. The first citizenship legislation resulted from compromise between these three factions.[25][26]

The Law on the Succession of Ukraine, which took effect on 5 October, extended citizenship only to Soviet citizens with permanent residence in Ukraine as of independence.[27] The first Citizenship Law entered into force on 13 November.[28] The Law allowed those born in Ukraine or with parents or grandparents born in Ukraine to register for citizenship, and neither prohibited nor protected multiple citizenship.[29] It banned deprivation of citizenship, or denaturalization as the Soviet authorities had deployed "against the enemies of Soviet power".[30][31][32] The following month, the Soviet Union dissolved.

The 1978 Ukrainian SSR Constitution remained in effect but the Verkhovna Rada removed references to Soviet Union citizenship effective 18 July 1992.[33][34][35] Ukraine ratified a new constitution on 28 June 1996 that further enshrined the ban on deprivation of citizenship.[36]

From 1991 to 2005, Ukraine repeatedly expanded the grounds on which people anywhere could register for citizenship by birth on or through relatives born on Ukrainian or formerly Ukrainian territory.[37] To defend its own "compatriots abroad", Russia campaigned from 1993 to 1997 for multiple citizenship in other post-Soviet states including Ukraine.[38][39] Though some in Ukraine favored Russia's efforts, the authorities continued to oppose them.[39] Restrictions on multiple citizenship tightened in the late 1990s but softened in the subsequent decade.[40]

To reduce dual citizenship in cases of naturalization, Ukraine formed agreements with other post-Soviet states to establish a simplified, free-of-charge procedure to change citizenship from one country's to the other's.[41] Ukraine and Uzbekistan implemented the first such agreement in October 1998 and enabled some 28,000 formerly deported Crimean Tatars to switch from Uzbek to Ukrainian citizenship.[41][42] Though Russia and some other countries declined, Ukraine also concluded agreements with Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.[41] Some of these agreements later ended, and by 2017, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry reported only that such treaties remained in force with Belarus, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan.[43][44]

The current Citizenship Law replaced the first law in 2001 and has undergone several amendments, most recently in 2019.[45] Ukraine signed the European Convention on Nationality in 2003 and ratified it in 2006.[46][47] That year, Ukraine also became the first country to sign the Council of Europe convention on the avoidance of statelessness in relation to State succession, but never ratified it.[46][48]

According to Ukraine's nationality law, Ukrainian citizenship can be voluntarily renounced by Ukrainian citizens who have taken up permanent residence in a foreign country and who have acquired a foreign citizenship or have received confirmation that they will acquire a foreign citizenship upon successful renunciation of their Ukrainian citizenship. Citizenship can only be renounced in the presence of a Ukrainian consular official at a Ukrainian diplomatic mission and proof of the final/impending acquisition of foreign citizenship is required to do so.

Automatic loss of Ukrainian citizenship occurs in the event an adult Ukrainian citizen voluntarily acquires a foreign nationality or enters into the military or governmental service of a foreign power.

Ukrainian citizenship is not automatically lost in the following circumstances:

• Acquiring a foreign citizenship at birth by descent from a parent when Ukrainian citizenship is also acquired by descent.
• Being adopted by foreign nationals when Ukrainian citizenship was originally acquired by descent from a biological parent.
• Automatically acquiring citizenship of one's spouse upon marriage to a foreign national.
• Automatically acquiring a foreign citizenship upon reaching the age of majority in accordance with the nationality law of a foreign country. In this case Ukrainian citizenship is retained providing that the individual had no formal (documented) knowledge of the automatic acquisition of the foreign citizenship.

The decision on termination of Ukrainian citizenship must be taken by the President of Ukraine.[51]