Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

Thanks, Putin, But Ukrainians Won’t Want Russian Passports

A provocative citizenship offer from the Kremlin challenges Ukraine’s new president to work on making all citizens feel welcome.

April 30, 2019 at 6:00 AM UTC

By Leonid Bershidsky

Leonid Bershidsky, formerly Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist, is a member of the Bloomberg News Automation Team. He recently published Russian translations of George Orwell’s “1984” and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.”

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Photographer: Stanislav Krasilnikov/TASS via Getty Images

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Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is making it clear that he won’t be a pushover for Russian President Vladimir Putin. He posted a biting diatribe over the weekend in response to Putin’s offer of Russian passports to Ukrainian citizens both inside and outside the areas of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russian-backed militants.

Zelenskiy, however, will have to contend with more than one foreign state issuing its passports to Ukrainians as a result of his predecessor’s divisive language and citizenship policy. It should be one of his first things to fix once he’s inaugurated next month.