Maksym Beznosiuk
On January 20, new exit and entry regulations from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs came into force, removing birth certificates from the list of valid travel documents for children under the age of 14 in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine (Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, November 7, 2025; The Federal Security Service Border Service, accessed January 22). As a result, minors in territories under the Kremlin’s control, including Crimea and other occupied parts of Ukraine, may legally cross borders only if they hold Russian passport documentation. While the rules are formally document-based rather than destination-specific, they eliminate the last non-passport exit option for Ukrainian children under Russian occupation. These measures operationalize amendments adopted earlier in July 2025, when the Kremlin introduced Federal Law No. 257-FZ (President of Russia, July 23, 2025). These changes extend forced passportization to Ukrainian children, further restricting civilian mobility and tightening the Kremlin’s administrative grip over the occupied territories of Ukraine.
On September 10, 2025, the Kremlin formally concluded its forced passportization campaign—the mass, fast-track naturalization of a territory’s population by distributing passports—in the occupied Ukrainian territories. In March 2025, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that all residents of the occupied regions would be required to become passport-holding citizens of Russia to “settle their legal status” (Meduza, October 22, 2025). Ukrainians who do not have a Russian passport face deportation and loss of access to essential services. Residents of the occupied territories who did not obtain a Russian passport through the expedited system in place before September 2025 now face a long-term application process that can take several years (Suspilne, September 13, 2025).
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