KYIV -- President Volodymyr Zelenskiy marked Ukraine's Day of Unity with the introduction of a draft law that allows multiple citizenships, a move that would make it possible for foreign fighters and ethnic Ukrainians outside the country to hold Ukrainian passports while not giving up other citizenship.
Zelenskiy said in an address on January 22, which marks the 1919 Unification Act of the Ukrainian People's Republic and the short-lived West Ukrainian People's Republic, that the law would not apply to "citizens of the aggressor country," a thinly veiled reference to Russian citizens.
Ukraine has been fighting to repel a full-scale Russian invasion, launched by the Kremlin in February 2022. The Ukrainian government established an officially sanctioned foreign legion just days after the invasion, with some estimates putting the number of foreigners at around 2,000.
"Today, we have to step forward not only to strengthen the unity of Ukraine and our people, but also for the unity of the rights and freedoms, the truth for Ukrainians, the truth for us, and the truth for our history," Zelenskiy said of the draft law that will allow the adoption of comprehensive legislative amendments and the introduction of multiple citizenship.
"Those who, with the outbreak of a full-scale war, regardless of their place of residence, birth, or passport, said in the affirmative, 'I am Ukrainian.'... Ukrainians by origin, who have long proven that they are Ukrainians in spirit. And after many years of waiting, they should finally become Ukrainians by passport," he added.
Current law does not allow dual or multiple citizenship for Ukrainian passport holders. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a similar law earlier this month enabling foreign fighters the possibility of receiving Russian citizenship.
Zelenskiy also signed a decree that contains an outline of a program "to preserve the ethnic identity of Ukrainians" traditionally residing in Russia's Krasnodar, Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Kursk, and Rostov regions.
The Day of Unity has been marked as a national holiday in Ukraine since 1999.
The idea to mark the Day of Unity appeared almost a decade before that, when the country was still part of what was then the Soviet Union. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians joined together on January 21, 1990, to form a live chain connecting Kyiv, the capital, with several other nearby cities in a show of unity and nationalism.
