What Putin's citizenship decree of 4 January 2024 signalled
A retrospective on a decree offering Russian citizenship to foreign fighters, set against a prisoner exchange, a Bosporus refusal and missile strikes.
What did Russia's decree of 4 January 2024 add to the picture of a war in its third calendar year? Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an order granting Russian citizenship to foreigners who fight for Russia in the war against Ukraine, and to their families.
The decree extended a material incentive to people from outside Russia to join the fighting, and it did so in the same days that the war's human toll was on display elsewhere.
A week of contrasts
On 2 January 2024, a Russian missile attack killed four civilians and injured nearly 100 others in Kharkiv, while at least 27 civilians were injured by a missile attack in Kyiv. The strikes were part of the continuing campaign against Ukrainian cities.
On 3 January, Ukraine and Russia completed their first prisoner exchange in nearly five months, releasing over 200 people on each side. The United Arab Emirates mediated the exchange, which gave families on both sides a rare piece of good news.
The same day, Turkey denied access to the Black Sea for two Royal Navy minehunters. Ankara said that their passage through the Bosporus and Dardanelles would violate the Montreux Convention of 1936. The episode showed how the war's naval dimension was tied to the rules governing the straits.
Reading the decree
Taken together, these days showed several tracks running in parallel: continued missile strikes on cities, a limited humanitarian channel brokered by a third country, and legal constraints on foreign military support at sea. The citizenship decree belonged to the first of these, since it was aimed at sustaining Russia's manpower for the fighting rather than at easing it.
The exchange demonstrated that mediation could still produce results even as strikes continued. The decree, by contrast, pointed to a Russian leadership preparing for a longer war.
