Kyrgyz Lawmaker Calls for Probe of Russian Website Offering Kyrgyz Citizenship

Kyrgyz lawmaker Gulya Kojogulova has called on the country’s security agencies to look into the avito.ru website in Russia, which offers to buy Kyrgyz citizenship for Russian and Belarusian citizens born before the official dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. At a parliamentary session on May 18, Kojogulova also criticized the Digital Development Ministry for a lack of control over the passport issuance procedure. After Western countries imposed sanctions on numerous Russian individuals and companies, including financial institutions, over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, many Russians started looking to get passports in other countries, mostly in the former Soviet republics.