Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine #736 of June 4, 2026

Who is affected: citizens of Ukraine or their legal representatives, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the State Migration Service, the State Border Guard Service, the Security Service of Ukraine.

Summary:

  • introduces a separate procedure for issuing an identity certificate for returning to Ukraine for those who were born in occupied territory and have no record in Ukrainian registers, effectively acknowledging that the standard documentation procedure does not work for this category of people;
  • designates five diplomatic missions authorized to issue such certificates: embassies in Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, and three missions in Turkey — that is, the countries through which people from the occupied territories are most likely to travel;
  • establishes a two-level procedure for identity verification: first, a check through state registers and databases; if identification fails, a survey of a witness from among relatives is conducted, either in person or via videoconference;
  • limits the validity of the certificate to three months and prohibits its extension or repeated issuance at another mission — the document is valid solely for a single border crossing for the purpose of entry into Ukraine;
  • provides for free issuance and a maximum procedure period of two months from the day the application is submitted;
  • grants the Security Service of Ukraine the right to block the issuance of a certificate without explaining the grounds.

What is right:

The resolution addresses a real and painful problem: children born in the occupied territories after 2014 often have no Ukrainian documents whatsoever and find themselves in a legal vacuum, since they are citizens of Ukraine by birth, but the state effectively cannot identify them.

The flexibility of the identity verification procedure through witnesses and video communication is the right solution for people who physically cannot gather a standard package of documents. Free issuance and a two-month review period are adequate parameters for a procedure that is humanitarian in essence.

What is wrong:

The right of the Security Service of Ukraine to refuse the issuance of a certificate without any explanation and without a clear procedure for appealing this specific ground is a problem. A person who seeks to return to Ukraine may receive a refusal and not find out why, and appealing this refusal through the courts is extremely difficult.

The geography of the missions is narrow: it covers the most obvious routes but excludes EU countries, where a significant share of people from the occupied territories who wish to return through the West, rather than through Turkey or the post-Soviet space, are located.

The certificate is valid only for entry and does not resolve the question of subsequent documentation after crossing the border: the procedure does not regulate what happens to a person after they have entered Ukraine with a three-month document.

Alternative solution:

The ground for refusal in the form of a “Security Service caveat” requires either specification, with a definition of the risk categories that constitute grounds for the caveat, or at least a closed mechanism for review of such a decision by an independent body, in order to make the arbitrary blocking of citizens’ return impossible.

It would be advisable to expand the geography of the missions to at least one or two EU countries, for example Poland or Germany, where a significant Ukrainian diaspora is concentrated and where people from the occupied territories may be located.

The procedure needs to be supplemented by a provision on what happens after entry: automatic referral to the State Migration Service bodies for the issuance of full-fledged documents, within defined deadlines and without additional confirmation of the same circumstances that have already been verified by the diplomatic mission.

What happened:

The resolution is a highly specialized but important document: it opens the way home for a category of people who, due to the circumstances of their birth and the occupation, found themselves in a legal dead end.