Well-known military officer with DPR citizenship is not given a Russian passport
US journalist Patrick Lancaster, who moved to Donetsk and received DPR citizenship, is not being given Russian citizenship.
He reported this on his page on the social network, a Politnavigator correspondent reports.
Patrick Lancaster came to Donbass in 2014 to film a report on the events taking place in the region, and remained in Donetsk. Received DPR citizenship. He married a local girl who bore him children. He repeatedly went to the front line to film reports, was present during the storming of the airport, and during the Debaltsevo operation.
“Why can’t Russia decide whether all citizens of the republic should have equal rights?” – he wrote on social networks.
Lancaster recalled that Russian passports have been issued to residents of Donbass for more than two years - during this time hundreds of thousands of people have received them. To simplify and speed up the procedure, the State Duma of the Russian Federation even adopted a law “on a simplified system for obtaining citizenship.”
“I applied for Russian citizenship, submitting all the necessary documents to the main Donetsk passport office, as required. After two months of waiting, I was informed (by the main passport office in Donetsk) that my request had been rejected (along with many other non-Ukrainians) by the government of the Russian Federation, since Russia had again changed the law, stating that DPR/LPR citizens who do not have Ukrainian citizenship cannot obtain Russian citizenship using a “simplified scheme,” the journalist explained.
Further proceedings and attempts to break through the bureaucratic system also did not bring any results.
“It is clear that there is some misinformation and misunderstanding going on. When I contacted the passport department in Donetsk even today, I was informed that, according to a Russian directive, they no longer accept applications from citizens of the Donetsk People's Republic who do not have Ukrainian citizenship with a request to obtain Russian citizenship. Why don’t citizens of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics enjoy equal rights from Russia? Is this a mistake or intentional discrimination?
Will the relevant authorities correct this situation, or will some DPR/LPR citizens who are not Ukrainians continue to be considered unworthy by Russia, while others are the opposite?” – the American was indignant.
The journalist from America was also supported by the author of the WarGonzo channel, military correspondent Semyon Pegov.
“Obviously, he's Irish-American and all that. But with his work on the Donetsk front line, Patrick certainly proved that in extreme situations - when it is literally a question of life and death - he is more Russian than those Russians who prefer to sit in the rear and not notice how the semi-fascist Kiev regime is ( with the support of the West and the United States, by the way) is methodically exterminating the population of the original Russian Donbass.
He received DPR citizenship absolutely deservedly – no one in Donbass doubts this.
Maybe they don’t give him a Russian passport because they consider him a spy? Then why haven’t the counter-espionage services split him up yet - after all, he has been traveling around the Donbass positions for seven years? In general, I repeat, there is little logic in all this. And the young Russian family is suffering,” Pegov wrote on his blog.
Russian rock singer Yulia Chicherina also expressed her opinion about what was happening.
“Fearless reporter, volunteer information fighter Patrick Lancaster, who has been fighting for the Russian World for eight years, loves Russia so much that he married a Russian beauty and had children, became a citizen of the DPR and is loyal to his fellow citizens - he organized a fundraiser and bought a house for a large family from the village of Zaitsevo in the DPR, who was left homeless during a raid by the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” she wrote on the social network.
The singer recalled that actor Gerard Depardieu and singer Natalia Oreiro received Russian citizenship without any problems, to whom the Russian Ambassador personally presented a passport in Argentina.
“Unlike those listed above, Patrick Lancaster is definitely worthy of this passport, and he really needs it,” concluded Chicherina.
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