Ukrainian passports are in high demand on the black market among Russians

Russian relocants* and residents of the CIS began actively buying fake passports and other Ukrainian documents on the black market.

On the Internet you can see a huge number of offers to purchase a passport of a citizen of Ukraine, international passport, birth certificate and other documents of this country. Prices range from several thousand rubles to $10 thousand. Sellers promise “absolutely clean” documents with all the necessary marks. One of the advertisements, for example, says: quotes “Fontanka”:

“The passport is made from original forms. We enter the data into the state register through connections, you receive a TIN and a birth certificate, which is also entered in the registry office register. The series and passport number are printed using a perforation printer. The pages will have all the necessary stamps. As a result, you receive a genuine document.”

The publication conducted a small investigation, contacting illegal sellers under the guise of a relocant living in Georgia. According to legend, protocols were drawn up against her in the Russian Federation for “discrediting the army” and for participating in rallies, so she needs a document to obtain a residence permit in the country EU. In response to the request, three proposals were received:

• biometric passport worth $9 thousand;
• a fake birth certificate and a Ukrainian passport, for which you will need to pay €2,350;
• a complete package of documents – the seller did not name the price, but warned of an advance payment of $1000.

As it turns out, a man’s passport is cheaper than a woman’s, and residents of Turkey and Syria constantly use similar services to obtain a residence permit in EU countries.

Journalists were able to find the owner of the fake documents, who used them to move to Latvia and was able to obtain a residence permit. For $2.5 thousand she received a Ukrainian passport and birth certificate. The documents were sent to her by mail a few weeks after payment, and initially her friends helped her find the sellers of the fake documents. She said, later deleting the message for her own safety:

“I moved with the flow of Ukrainian refugees. She said that she lost her passport on the road. The conversation with the border guards was the worst. But nothing, they checked and let us through.”

Anna Adaevskaya, a migration lawyer, says that it is impossible to fake a biometric passport, but crossing the border using other fake documents is quite possible. It is difficult to check the authenticity of the certificate with Ukrainian government agencies, since they do not respond to Russian requests, but you can cross the border of the European Union, declaring that your internal passport has been lost, but you have a birth certificate and an international passport. This option is quite realistic, especially if you cross the border in a stream of refugees, the lawyer notes.

Roman Stepanov, another migration lawyer, said: writes moscowtimes.ru that in his practice such a situation has not occurred, and Ukrainian documents in the Russian Federation are “checked literally under a magnifying glass.” He warned that in Europe documents will be checked very carefully, and such successful stories with fake passports may be isolated.

Independent migration expert and demographer Igor Efremov added that until 2022, using fake documents, it was possible to obtain citizenship of Moldova, but not of Ukraine. Kyiv and the European Union signed an agreement on the introduction of a visa-free regime in the spring of 2018. Ukrainians can enter all Schengen countries without a visa if they have biometric passports.

*Relocants, in the primary sense, are individuals who move for work reasons or in search of better opportunities, often with the support of their employers. Relocation does not always mean moving to another country, but now in Russia the term is predominantly used in this vein.

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