Our expert answers your questions about Ukraine

Based on information that I have found, your father still needs to have a valid document proving his identity and Ukrainian citizenship. But to return to Ukraine, it is not necessary to issue a new international passport. He can receive a so-called certificate of return (also known as identity card, white passport).

This can be done within one day. Official information on getting it is available on the site of the Ukrainian Embassy in the UK. I think you should try to contact the embassy directly to clarify all the details and perhaps, due to your urgent circumstances, they will be able to provide you with this service in a faster manner, avoiding online queue, which can take weeks.

As of December 2023, the state fees to issue a Ukrainian biometric international passport are 856 UAH (Ukrainian Hryvnias) or about 23 USD (20 working days) or 1,496 UAH or 40 USD (7 working days). There are no flights from Ukraine to the UK. No civilian flights are available in Ukraine at all at the moment. The embassy of the UK doesn't issue visas in Ukraine as well. A visa can be obtained in nearby countries.

As we receive similar requests almost every day, our advice is not to send any help to a person in Ukraine, especially in parts of Ukraine controlled by Russia, before you are absolutely sure that this person is real. The first step is to talk to this person directly via something like Skype, Facebook, WhatsApp, etc. with a camera turned on.

Only after you have found a person with whom you can regularly speak directly (live video), you should arrange your live meeting in Ukraine (after the war in Lviv or Kyiv) or in nearby countries like Poland (during the war). A real person again can do it without your help, a fake one will find a number of issues why it is not possible or your help is required to do it. Otherwise you are doing it at your risk.

All the details of obtaining a new Ukrainian international biometric passport abroad are described in the following article on the site of the embassy of Ukraine to the US. The procedure will take several months.

You may be offered to extend your current passport, which is about to expire/already expired, but we don't recommend doing this. Although this can be done quickly during an embassy appointment, such an extended passport can cause a number of problems when traveling, so it is better to wait and get a new passport.

From the point of view of Ukraine, an expired Ukrainian international passport, which term has been extended at the embassy/consulate of Ukraine is still valid and can be used without any restrictions for travel, similar to a non-extended valid international passport.

However, in practice the situation may be different, and lately we have faced an increasing number of cases when additional questions arise regarding such extended passports when traveling between countries, since they are often displayed in databases as expired. The person with an extended passport has to explain that the passport is valid because it has been extended, but it doesn't always work. Therefore, we recommend to spend more time, but to obtain a new valid Ukrainian international passport as soon as possible, since relying on an extended passport is becoming increasingly risky and there may be difficulties with travel.

Having a Ukrainian permanent residence permit is not equal to having Ukrainian citizenship. If, nevertheless, we are talking about the official withdrawal from Ukrainian citizenship, then the main condition is that the citizen leaves Ukraine for permanent residence in another country and must first go through the procedure for leaving for permanent residence, and after arriving in the country of permanent residence, register with consular office of Ukraine. Otherwise, in the future, the termination of Ukrainian citizenship by withdrawing from it will be very difficult. Simply put, in this case, in order to undergo this procedure, the person will have to return to Ukraine.

I think that this person should not really worry about such procedures at all, if this person is not going to return to Ukraine and there is an opportunity to stay for a permanent residence in the current country of residence and it is possible to obtain citizenship of this country in the future.

Ukraine does not recognize dual citizenship, and the very fact of having another citizenship can become a reason for terminating Ukrainian citizenship, although in practice this is almost never done. Therefore, it is understandable why your friend was denied a Ukrainian biometric passport, since they apparently somehow became aware that she also has Russian citizenship.

So if she wants to get Ukrainian documents without any problems, then she will have to go through the procedure of renouncing her Russian citizenship. This can be done at the local Russian embassy/consulate and should not be a problem since she already has Ukrainian citizenship.

Their Ukrainian international passports can be extended (only once and not earlier than in 2 months before the expiration date) in the consulate of Ukraine in Dubai.

The only official way to get an embassy/consulate appointment is via the following online queue. This queue is 30 days long, which means that free spots appear all the time, but they are quickly taken, so you have to check it all the time and I mean literally every 10-15 minutes.

Currently, this online appointment is the only way to receive services from the embassy including issuing a new international passport or extending the validity of an expired one (although it can be extended only once, so if her international passport has already been extended, it is unlikely that it will be possible to do it again).

The problem that there are no free spots in the queue exists. The queue stretches forward for 30 days, and since the number of Ukrainian citizens who make an appointment is very large, there are no free spots at first glance. However, this means that free spots appear every day and randomly during the day. When I personally checked this online appointment service, I saw one free spot about 10 minutes long, which was soon not available again, that is, someone took it. So it is possible, she just needs to monitor the queue all the time.

A citizen of Ukraine can have only one valid international passport at any given time. It can be an expired passport, but extended for a certain period of time, or just a passport that has not yet expired.

The only case when a person can have two international passports in his/her hands is when, upon receiving a new passport, this person asks to leave him/her the expired passport, since it has visas that are still valid and can be used for some time to enter the respective countries. In this situation, it is possible, but again, there will be only one valid international passport (the new one), and only visas will be still valid in the old one.

Most likely you have this right, although if you are a US citizen now, then you will have to pledge to terminate your US citizenship, as Ukraine doesn't recognize dual citizenship.

The basis for the loss of citizenship of Ukraine is the voluntary acquisition by a citizen of Ukraine of the citizenship of another state, if at the time of such acquisition the person has reached the age of majority. But in practice it is rarely done. You can contact the embassy of Ukraine to the US to get more info.