Poroshenko Withdraws Bill On Terminating Ukrainian Citizenship Of Crimean Residents That Participate In Russian Elections

President Petro Poroshenko has withdrawn from the parliament the draft law No. 8297, which provides for terminating the Ukrainian citizenship of residents of the Russia-annexed Crimea that participate in Russian elections.

This was announced by Member of Parliament Hryhorii Nemyria of the Batkivschyna All-Ukrainian Association party's parliamentary faction, who heads the relevant parliament committee, the Ukrainian News Agency reports.

The committee was due to consider the possibility of putting this draft law to a vote in the parliament on Wednesday, but Poroshenko decided to withdraw and the authors of the alternative draft law did likewise.

Nemyria said earlier that the Member of Parliament Refat Chubarov of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction, who is the leader of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, wrote him to say that he would not be able to attend a meeting of the committee on Wednesday and that he favored return of the draft law to its author for redrafting.

The parliament's main department of experts also proposed returning the draft law to Poroshenko for redrafting.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, Poroshenko terminated the Ukrainian citizenship of almost 5,200 people while fewer than 1,000 people obtained Ukrainian citizenship in 2017.