Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree granting Russian citizenship to 21 people, including several foreign journalists and prominent figures. This decision has once again drawn attention to the Kremlin’s practice of granting citizenship to those who work for its organisations in the international media sphere.
One of the recipients was the Italian Vincenzo Lorusso, who works for the state-run television channel RT and runs the Telegram channel ‘Donbass Italia’. Lorusso lives in Luhansk, in the part of Ukraine currently controlled by pro-Russian forces, and actively supports Russian policy in the region. His activities are, in particular, aimed at spreading pro-Russian narratives amongst a European audience.
In addition to Lorusso, other RT journalists have also been granted Russian passports: the Germans Ulrich Golke, Dagmar Henn and Ann-Christine Iversen, as well as María Isabel Sevallos Simankas from Ecuador, who presents programmes on RT Español.
Interestingly, the list of new citizens also includes sportsmen: Canadian ice hockey player Jeremy Roy, who plays for Moscow’s CSKA, and Itay Avraham Golan, who plays for Torpedo-Gorky. The list also includes Dragan Šarić — a representative of the Serbian Orthodox Church and a native of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
This is not the first time Putin has granted citizenship to foreign figures linked to the Russian media. Previously, a similar fate befell Adrian Boke from Switzerland and the American Peter Lavelle, whose names had been included on EU sanctions lists. It is clear that such moves form part of the Kremlin’s broader strategy to strengthen its influence in the international information landscape.