The head of the Investigative Committee (IC) of the Russian Federation, Alexander Bastrykin, in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta, suggested sending people from Central Asia to the war in Ukraine as a priority.

“By acquiring Russian citizenship, these people receive not only rights, but also duties that are established by the current legislation. One of them is the passage of military service in the armed forces of the Russian Federation in accordance with the requirements. Under the conditions of a special military operation, the state encourages foreign citizens to enter military service under a contract, providing the opportunity to obtain Russian citizenship in a simplified manner,” he said.

Alexander Bastrykin, citing statistics, said that foreigners are massively receiving Russian citizenship, bypassing military service.

In particular, over the past five years, more than a million people who arrived from the countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus, including 550 thousand former residents of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, have acquired Russian citizenship.

“Only in the first half of 2022, more than 60,000 adult citizens of these states received Russian citizenship and, therefore, not only the rights, but also the constitutional obligation to protect the country that adopted them. In this regard, it is advisable to consider the issue of prioritizing the direction of naturalized citizens to participate in the implementation of tasks of a special military operation,” the IC head concluded.