Russia is going to toughen migration rules for Ukrainians on its territory. It plans to reduce the mandatory registration period for Ukrainians from 90 to 3 days. This step runs counter to the 2004 bilateral agreement that provides for a 90-day term. Andrii Deshchytsia, spokesman for Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, announced that Kyiv is ready to respond by introducing registration for Russian citizens. In his turn, Konstantin Poltoranin, spokesman for the Federal Migration Service of Russia, replied that the new rules came into force in Russia on Jan.1, 2007, which canceled such things as the “registration of foreign citizens,” but introduced a certain procedure for recording the presence of migrants. “Until recently, there was an agreement between Russia and Ukraine that gave Ukrainian citizens privileges with regard to questions concerning registration in the Russian Federation. Our position is that foreign citizens who arrive in Russia must have equal status, be it a citizen of Ukraine, the US, Britain, or Kyrgyzstan,” Poltoranin said.
COMMENTARY
Oleksandr SUSHKO, director, Center for Peace, Conversion and Foreign Policy of Ukraine:
“Ukrainians definitely have a privileged position in comparison to other foreigners and, where Moscow is concerned, even to non-residents of Moscow. According to Mayor Luzhkov’s regulations, Russian non-residents must register much sooner than Ukrainians, who can stay unregistered for up to 90 days. These pro-Ukrainian privileges have long irked both the Russian foreign ministry and the Moscow city authorities, which were forced to abide by this agreement. The fact that the agreement will be revised to the detriment of Ukrainians was clear from the very logic of Russia’s increasingly tougher migration policy. This question was repeatedly raised in 2005 and 2006. I am very surprised at the Russian side’s attitude to international treaties. Under the domestic laws and constitutions of both Ukraine and Russia, duly ratified international treaties are part of national law, which has supremacy over national legislation. So, in my opinion, official demarches, such as Poltoranin’s comment that this agreement is invalid now that Russia introduced a different migration law earlier this year, is ignorance of the law. An international agreement takes precedence over a domestic law. This is a unilateral manipulation of the provisions of different and mutually contradictory standard-setting instruments aimed at changing the rules governing Ukrainian citizens’ stay in Russia. Because if it were done honestly, there would be one of two decisions: either a unilateral denunciation of the agreement by Russia or a Russian proposal that the document be amended. But neither of these things was done.”
