Putin orders Ukrainians in Russia and occupied territories to obtain ‘legal status’ or leave by September 10

President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree ordering Ukrainian citizens living in Russia and Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine to obtain “legal status” or leave by September 10. 

The decree, published on an official website on Thursday, states that Ukrainian citizens who do not have “legal grounds for staying (residing) in the Russian Federation” are required to “leave on their own” or “regulate their legal status” by September 10, 2025. 

It also orders “foreign nationals and stateless persons” residing in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions to undergo medical exams to check for drug use and infectious diseases by June 10, 2025. 

Putin declared the annexation of Ukraine’s Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions in September 2022, despite the fact that the Russian military only partially controlled these regions. Russia previously declared the annexation of Crimea after occupying the Ukrainian peninsula in 2014.