In occupied Crimea, children of non-Russian citizens are no longer allowed to go to school - this is "improvement of Russia's migration policy"

In the occupied Crimea, parents of first-graders faced a problem with enrolling their children in school. This is reported in Crimean publics. In particular, such problems have been observed in Sevastopol since April 1:

The occupation "police" of Sevastopol confirmed that new Russian laws came into force on April 1. According to them, schools require a stamp that a child is legally on the territory of Russia, otherwise he or she will not be allowed to study. And Russia considers all the temporarily occupied territories (TOT), including Crimea, to be its "new territories," so it is clear that this problem is faced not only in Crimea, but throughout Russia and all TOT.

In this regard, parents, not only of first-graders, but of all children under 14 years of age - those who have not yet received their own passports of Russian citizens, should make sure that the child's birth certificate has the stamps of the migration service: this is either a stamp of Russian citizenship or a residence permit in the Russian Federation.

The occupiers' demands are due to a number of amendments to the Russian law on education, which the State Duma adopted back in December 2024: it is about enrolling in schools only children of those "foreigners" who necessarily know Russian and are legally on the territory of Russia.

According to these legislative acts, from April 1, 2025, children of migrants who do not know Russian will not be allowed to enroll in Russian schools. Free testing will be conducted to determine the level of knowledge. The test has been developed by the Federal Service for Health and Education. As we have already mentioned, those who are staying in Russia illegally - that is, children "without a stamp" in their birth certificates - will not be admitted to school.

To get the "cherished" stamp, parents must bring a package of documents from registration centers or from departments of migration services: their passports of citizens of the Russian Federation (or passports of foreign citizens together with a residence permit in the territory of Russia) and the child's birth certificate.

From the reports in Crimean publics, it is obvious that many children on the TOT of Ukraine still have a Ukrainian birth certificate, so they will have to provide a notarized translation of this document along with this document.

The so-called "director of the Department of Education" of the occupation authorities of Sevastopol, Maxim Krivonis, assured that additional "stamping" points have been opened, the working hours of which have already been expanded. He also noted:

Judging by the massive appeals of the peninsula's residents to the occupation authorities of Crimea, which are reported by local media, few people manage to solve the problem "on the phone": a parent's application for admission of a child to school on the portal "Gosposlugi", as the collaborator Krivonis has already said, gets into the waiting mode and is "signed" only after the parents visit the registration centers with the specified package of documents.

It is worth noting that following the adoption of these amendments to the laws of Russia on education, the speaker of the State Duma of Russia Vyacheslav Volodin told TASS that since the beginning of 2024, the Russian parliament has already adopted 14 federal laws "aimed at improving migration policy and combating illegal migration." That is, changes were made not only to the Russian law on education.

Another one of the authors of the bill, Yaroslav Nilov, chairman of the Committee on Social Policy and Veterans Affairs in the Russian State Duma, noted that the presence of children in classrooms who do not speak Russian interferes with other students.

"Holos Kryma" has already written that the rules of residence in Russia for "foreign citizens", which include Ukrainian citizens living in the TOT, are constantly tightening. Residents of the TOT are forced to obtain Russian passports as soon as possible, as well as to replace driving licenses.