A program to motivate young people living in the temporarily occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts to preserve the citizenship of Ukraine was commissioned by President Volodymyr Zelensky. This was reported by the press service of the head of state.
The President held a meeting on providing young people living in CADLO with opportunities to obtain passport of a citizen of Ukraine and assisting applicants in entering Ukrainian universities.
The meeting was attended by representatives of the Ministry of Education and Science, the Ministry of Veterans, Temporarily Occupied Territories and Internally Displaced Persons, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the State Migration Service and the Security Service of Ukraine.
During the meeting, Zelensky drew attention to the fact that while the war was ongoing in eastern Ukraine, Russia was massively issuing its passports to people who live in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. According to the president, this situation is unacceptable, and Ukraine must fight for its citizens. Therefore, there is a need to develop a special program, the purpose of which will be to provide young people with documents confirming the citizenship of Ukraine.
"We should establish contact with civilians who are in the occupied territories and cannot live in the Ukraine-controlled territory for one reason or another", - Zelensky said.
According to the head of state, these measures should motivate young people to receive a Ukrainian education and provide assistance in arranging further life in the territory controlled by Ukraine.
According to Zelensky, it is not only about those who remained to live in the temporarily occupied territories, but also about those who subsequently returned there, because they could not get settled in the controlled territory, enter Ukrainian universities before the introduction of preferential conditions for admission for this category of citizens.
Among the proposed steps is simplification of the procedure for obtaining administrative services, in particular, in terms of obtaining a Ukrainian birth certificate and passport by residents of the occupied territories.
The possibility of providing distance learning of the Ukrainian language and the history of Ukraine - disciplines that are not currently taught in the temporarily occupied territories, as well as expanding the number of higher education institutions where children of this category could enter, increasing quotas for budget places in them, organizing hotline for applicants and the like are being considered as well.
The need to ensure a broad communication campaign to clarify and inform about these steps was separately emphasized.
The head of state emphasized the importance of organizing administrative service centers at checkpoints along the demarcation line in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts and at the administrative border with Crimea, where people could get the necessary services and important information.
The meeting participants agreed to develop the proposals more substantively before March 1 and present them at the next meeting.