In recent days, we have been witnesses to an artificial information campaign regarding the Russian occupation administration continuously coercing Ukrainian citizens of Crimea to obtain Russian passports since March 2014.

The coercion of citizens into obtaining Russian passports has been an element of oppression policies of the aggressor state against the citizens of Ukraine, who are forced to live under its occupation.

By the act of illegal occupation and attempted annexation of Crimea, Russia grossly violated both Ukrainian and international law.

The Law of Ukraine “On Ensuring the Rights and Freedoms of Citizens and Legal Regime in the Temporarily Occupied Territory of Ukraine” of April 15, 2014 stipulates clearly that forceful automatic acquisition of Russian citizenship by the citizens of Ukraine residing in the temporarily occupied territory is not recognized by Ukraine, and cannot be considered the grounds for the loss of citizenship of Ukraine. Article 45 of the (IV) Convention respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land of 1907 forbids to compel the inhabitants of an occupied territory to swear allegiance to the hostile power, thus forbidding a forcible change of citizenship.

The coercion of citizens into obtaining Russian citizenship is also a premeditated and cynically executed element of systematic oppression of Ukrainian citizens by the Russian occupation administration.

Ukrainian citizens, who are living in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, are in fact denied any right of choice.

Opportunities to renounce Russian citizenship were from the start severely limited through the scarcity of institutions processing this type of applications and extremely tight deadlines for submitting the applications.

Besides, if residents of Crimea refused to obtain Russian passports, they were artificially limited in their rights to employment, medical care, social and pension benefits. The absence of Russian passport often became the grounds for a forced deportation and ban to enter the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol.

Coercion into Russian citizenship has also been an integral part of persecution of pro-Ukrainian activists and journalists by the occupying power. The history of the occupation showed that the inhabitants of Crimea had every reason to fear that the occupation authorities would then make an "inventory" of opponents and targets for repression out of the lists of people, who were filing applications for the renunciation of Russian citizenship.

Ukrainian citizens were also forced to obtain Russian passports in order to keep their homes and property on the occupied peninsula. In this regard, a decree depriving Ukrainian citizens of the right to own land in the temporarily occupied Crimea, recently signed by President Vladimir Putin, became another step towards forcing the inhabitants of Crimea into Russian citizenship and a gross violation of international law.

Ukraine remains determined to protect the rights and interests of Ukrainian citizens living under occupation in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol.

Crimea is Ukraine.