E. Gudzinskaitė: Ukrainians are hardly interested in Lithuanian citizenship, nine received it this year

“We really mostly hear questions about what will happen in a year, that is, the Ukrainians who contact us do not think that far ahead, the uncertainty is so great. The most common questions for them is how to extend their residence permit. After that, of course, if the temporary protection ends, there will be questions about how to stay in Lithuania,” E. Gudzinskaitė told LRT radio.

“We practically don’t get any questions about citizenship. If we look at how many Ukrainians tend to acquire citizenship in recent years – only a few, this year only nine Ukrainians acquired citizenship through naturalization,” she said.

According to the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, Arnoldos Abramavičius, citizenship is a universal institution and it is not divided into which country’s citizen wants to receive it. There are clear requirements for this: to live for ten years, to know the Lithuanian language. Exceptions apply when marrying a Lithuanian citizen, in which case the time is shortened.

According to him, Ukrainians can also apply for a permanent residence permit in Lithuania after spending five years here, having a basic knowledge of the Lithuanian language, without causing concerns for national security.

According to E. Gudzinskaitė, obtaining a permanent resident’s permit is quite difficult for many Ukrainians due to their mobile lifestyle.

“In order to get the status of a permanent resident, you have to live in Lithuania for five years. We noticed that Ukrainians are quite mobile, a significant part still wants to return to Ukraine. There are such cases that they come back, grow old, realize that it is impossible to live, come back. They do not maintain continuity, they leave Lithuania”, said E. Gudzinskaitė.

The Center for Eastern European Studies recently published survey data that showed that the majority of Ukrainians do not have very definite plans for the future. To the question of how long they plan to stay in Lithuania, 41 percent. answered that until the war ends in their homeland, 39 percent indicated that they plan to spend several years here. About ten percent said they had decided to stay here, and the same number said they would stay as long as it was possible to settle safely in Ukraine.

“I suspect that we were the first to ask the question about the possibility of acquiring Lithuanian citizenship. I have a suspicion that many Ukrainians do not really know the conditions under which they could apply for citizenship. This is only a very uncertain possibility in the future”, said Tomas Janeliūnas, head of research programs at the Center for European Studies.

Currently, about 86 thousand people live in Lithuania. citizens of Ukraine.