Ukraine is asked to permit dual citizenship for BSF mariners

14.10.2010 Russian-Ukrainian commission on Black Sea Fleet (BSF) should consider a possibility of dual citizenship for BSF mariners, said Konstantin Zatulin, deputy chairman of Russia's parliamentary committee on CIS affairs.

"Retired BSF officers normally stay in Sevastopol and have to change Russian citizenship for Ukrainian one. To most of them, it is a personal tragedy, because sometimes citizenship divides families. For instance, a father serves in BSF and is Russian citizen, while mother and children are Ukrainian ones. There's nothing bad that they become Ukrainian citizens, but why they have to cease to be the Russian ones?", said Zatulin at the press conference in Sevastopol.

We recall that Vladimir Ogryzko, the ex foreign minister of Ukraine along with various political forces stated after the Russian-Georgian conflict in 2008 that Crimean residents massively get Russian citizenship without refusal of Ukrainian one.

Right after that, security agencies opened a raid against Sevastopol inhabitants having dual citizenship. City procuracy revealed 1,595 such persons and deprived 27 BSF officers of Ukrainian citizenship.