From Human Rights in Ukraine by Halya Coynash
Russia has yet again hit new depths, and is forcing Ukrainians to take Russian citizenship or risk losing vital medication
After staging fake referendums in occupied parts of Ukraine and claiming full support for ‘joining Russia’, Moscow is now seeking to stage fake ‘elections’ in what it alone considers ‘new Russian territory’. To do so, however, it needs Ukrainians to accept Russian citizenship, and, like the ‘votes to join Russia’, that requires coercion.
According to the Mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, the Russians are trying to force residents of Melitopol and all other occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia oblast to receive Russian citizenship by 1 September, in time for Russia’s parliamentary ‘elections’. These have been illegal since 2014 since they were held in occupied Crimea, and now Russia wants to add to their illegitimacy by trying to use them to ‘legitimize’ seizure of other Ukrainian territory. Russia is now threatening that those who don’t obtain Russian citizenship by 1 September “will be made foreigners in their native land”…
Voice of Ukraine 