A number of amendments to Russian "Law on Citizenship" (62-FZ) were adopted in June 2015. The amendments referred to Article 14 of the law "Simplified way of accepting to citizenship». It looked like naturalisation in Russia was being liberalised.

By standard procedure, 3 months were given to various government bodies to make provisions to enable operation of the amendments. Now, in Feb 2015, 7 months later from June 2014 still none of the amendments work.

Feb 4th, 2015 GreenLane interviewed Mrs Valentina Kazakova, Head of Citizenship Department of Federal Migration Service of Russian Federation and Mrs Victoria Perova, Head of Citizenship and Residence Dpt for the Central Administrative District of Moscow on current status of the law and nearest prospects.

The "June 2014" amendments to the "Law on Citizenship» (62-FZ) were designed to diversify legal grounds for naturalisation in Russia. The categories of residence-holders described below may apply (are eligible) for Russian citizenship immediately after they obtain 5-year residence (blue passport) in Russia. Standard way of applying (Atrt 13 that doesn’t work either) requires 5 years of residence in Russia + international travel limitations New items to Article 14 of the Law were introduced: e) ж) з) and и)

Item e) those who received their education in Russia after July 1st 2002. Only officially accredited education programs count. Neither type of education (day, evening, distant, etc) nor course duration requirements are described in the law. According to Mrs Kazakova - neither type of education, nor course duration matter - official accreditation is the only requirement. However, the e) item doesn’t work. According to Mrs Kazakova, they expect to start to accept applications along item e) 'in two weeks', however, Mrs Perova said that 'two weeks' last since August. So, is unclear when it’s going to start working.

Item ж) - to be analysed in the following article...