Even when they leave Russia, Putin makes it difficult for Russians to renounce citizenship

Vlada Kharebova has been trying to renounce her Russian citizenship since 2022, but has so far been unsuccessful.

Kharebova lives in Latvia and is seeking Latvian citizenship for herself and her two children. But the Baltic state generally does not allow dual citizenship in such cases: The law states that dual Latvian-Russian citizenship is not permitted.

She has faced problems with the Russian Consulate in Riga, which, she says, provides a list of required documents but little guidance on how to obtain them.

“When you call or write to the Consulate, they say: 'We don't deal with this. We're sorry, we can't help you,'” Kharebova told Current Time.

Russia has also increased the fees for this process, making it now “an extremely high amount” for her to pay with her salary as a teacher.

Her daughter faced another hurdle when the Consulate refused to accept her application because she had not brought a copy of her university diploma from Russia. Kharebova said this requirement was not included in the available guidelines.

For Russians living abroad who want to renounce Russian citizenship, whether for legal, bureaucratic, or moral reasons, or a combination of factors, the process can take years. And it has now become significantly more expensive, both for those inside and outside Russia.

A new law that came into effect on July 22 increased the state fee for renouncing citizenship from 4.200 rubles (43.5 euros) to 50.000 rubles (518 euros), while a separate government decision increased the consular fee for applications filed abroad from 111 euros to 1.026 euros.

This increase adds another problem to a process that overseas applicants say can be difficult to follow.

Veronika Mikkonen, a resident of Finland, said that some of the documents required for the procedure are only valid for three months.

This can create a race against time, especially when applicants face difficulties securing an appointment at a Russian diplomatic mission – something that can also take months.

Mikkonen eventually managed to renounce her citizenship, but said that preparing the documents cost her almost 1.000 euros, even though the consular fee at the time was 130 euros.

Mikkonen implied that her decision was motivated by the Kremlin's repression in the country and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, launched by President Vladimir Putin in February 2022.

"I just didn't want to carry the passport of a dictatorial country and a country that started a war in my pocket," she told REL's Current Time.

Moscow stopped publishing statistics

The Russian Foreign Ministry has not published national figures on renunciation of citizenship since 2023. The figures it has published show that 4.356 people renounced Russian citizenship in 2019, 3.877 in 2020, 4.055 in 2021 and 4.306 in 2022, the first year of the full-scale war.

The ministry said the 2022 figure did not represent a significant change in this trend. In the first nine months of 2023, about 4.400 people renounced their citizenship, according to the head of the Foreign Ministry's Consular Department.

Hundreds of thousands of Russians fled the country after Putin announced large-scale military mobilization in September 2022.

The lack of updated state statistics makes it difficult to determine whether the number of people seeking to renounce Russian citizenship has increased as the occupation continues, with little sign that it may be ending.

But data from individual countries suggests that demand is considerable.

Estonia recorded 107 people renouncing Russian citizenship in 2024. By August 25, 2025, the figure for that year had already reached 126, according to the country's Interior Ministry.

Estonia also reported ongoing delays: The Russian Embassy in Tallinn stopped accepting new applications for renunciation of citizenship from the end of 2023 until February 2024, following the entry into force of a new Russian citizenship law.

After processing applications resumed, long lines continued, because Russia had closed its consulates in the cities of Tartu and Narva and reduced the number of staff at the embassy in Tallinn.

Russian consulates in several other European cities and elsewhere have been closed amid high tensions between Moscow and the West over the invasion of Ukraine and other issues.

Foreigners seeking Estonian citizenship through naturalization generally must renounce their existing citizenship. Therefore, delays at the Russian Embassy have created a problem for people who need proof that they are no longer Russian citizens before they can complete the naturalization process.

"I have nothing to do with Russia"

Russian law also sets conditions for renouncing citizenship. Applicants must have another citizenship or a guarantee that they will obtain it, while renunciation can be denied if the applicant has unpaid taxes, fees and fines or certain outstanding legal obligations.

For some applicants, the question is not whether they want to leave Russia, but whether they can afford to, pursue, and complete the process.

Aleksandr Smirnov, a Madrid resident who has obtained Spanish citizenship, told Current Time that he has tried unsuccessfully to renounce his Russian citizenship.

After the fee increase, he said he wasn't sure if it was worth continuing the process.

"I haven't been to Russia for 10 years, I have nothing to do with Russia, I have no assets or bank accounts there. I don't need this citizenship," he told Current Time.

"I would like to give it up, so that I only have one citizenship, that of the country where I live. That is logical. But my feeling is that their goal is to put up obstacles."

Human rights activist Lev Ponomaryov agrees and says he believes Russian authorities are interested in making renunciation of citizenship a difficult procedure to access.

"They don't want there to be a huge influx of people renouncing [their citizenship], so that this becomes a kind of information bomb that more and more people are renouncing Russian citizenship," he said.