Mikhail Delyagin, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma (Russia’s lower chamber of parliament) Committee on Economic Policy, has sent a letter to the government proposing the denunciation of the agreement between Russia and Tajikistan on "Regulating Dual Citizenship Issues," according to Gazeta.Ru.
In the letter, which the publication reviewed, Delyagin states that the agreement, signed in 1995 and ratified in 1996, has lost its original purpose and contributes to "low-quality migration." He explained that the agreement was initially designed to help Tajikistan recover after its civil war and to allow Russian-speaking people who found themselves in Russia after the collapse of the USSR to acquire Russian citizenship while maintaining their original citizenship.
Delyagin believes that the goals set when the agreement was signed have been achieved, and that it is now irrelevant. He also pointed out that maintaining the agreement leads to discrimination against citizens of other post-Soviet countries — Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan — for which no similar agreements exist.
"The continuation of this agreement stimulates increased migration from Tajikistan to Russia to obtain Russian citizenship. As a result, migration becomes not so much labor-related as social, which overloads the Russian social security system and leads to an increase in crime," Delyagin noted.
He emphasized that this poses a threat to the ethnic and confessional balance in Russia, creating parallel power structures, which could lead to a rise in social and political tensions.
Proposals to amend the Constitution
It is worth noting that earlier, Sergey Mironov, the leader of the "A Just Russia – For Truth" party, proposed removing the possibility of dual citizenship from the Russian Constitution. "It is time to choose which country you tie your fate to," he said.
Currently, Russia has a dual citizenship agreement only with Tajikistan. The agreement allows citizens of both countries to simultaneously hold Russian and Tajik citizenship.
Opinion of Russia's foreign minister
On February 19, this year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that the agreement between Russia and Tajikistan continues to play a significant role in strengthening the alliance between the two countries. He said that the agreement is "beneficial, equal, and serves the interests of both Russian and Tajik citizens."
It is also worth mentioning that Russia has dual citizenship agreements with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which are recognized by Russia but not by other countries.
Mikhail Delyagin, 57, was a candidate for member of the State Duma of the VIII convocation in the elections in September 2021 from the party "A Just Russia – For Truth" and won the elections
Delyagin joined the left-center party “A Just Russia” in June 2016.
During the Russian invasion of Ukraine in April 2022, as part of a group of deputies, he introduced a bill that would empower the Russian Prosecutor General and his deputies to invalidate media registrations and terminate television and radio broadcasting licenses if they spread “fakes” about the Russian military and their “discrediting,” calls for sanctions, as well as information that contains “clear disrespect for society, the state, and the Constitution of the Russian Federation.”
Due to support for Russian aggression and violation of the territorial integrity of Ukraine during the Russian-Ukrainian war, he is under personal international sanctions from various countries
