Verification within Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program
With reference to the declaration of Ukraine’s Minister of Defense Rustem Umierov, information is being disseminated online claiming that three children of the official hold U.S. citizenship.
However, this is untrue. After the expiration of their foreign passports, Rustem Umierov’s children obtained Ukrainian passports at the Embassy of Ukraine in the U.S., where they have been residing since 2016. Therefore, the specified location for obtaining the passports is America. The children of the Minister of Defense only possess Ukrainian citizenship.
Screenshots of the post
Rustem Umierov indeed publicly disclosed his income and property status for the years 2021 and 2022. However, in the screenshot of the declaration, as in the original document, there is no indication that the children of the Minister of Defense of Ukraine hold American citizenship. Instead, the declaration states that the son and two daughters obtained a document defining U.S. citizenship, with the “type of document” field marked as “other.”
As explained by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Umierov’s children obtained Ukrainian passports after the expiration of their previous foreign passports at the Embassy of Ukraine in the U.S. Hence, the United States is listed as the location of document issuance. The minister’s children have only one citizenship — Ukrainian citizenship.
According to the Ministry of Defense, the Umierov family has been residing in the U.S. since 2016 due to threats and attempts by Russian special services related to the official’s activities concerning the deoccupation of Crimea.
Rustem Umierov began his political career in 2007 by becoming an advisor to the then-chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, Mustafa Dzhemilev. Together, they addressed issues concerning Crimean Tatar political prisoners. Umierov was a co-founder of charitable and civic organizations focused on the development of Muslim communities and the restoration of the rights of the Crimean Tatar people. In 2019, he successfully ran for the Ukrainian Parliament (Verkhovna Rada) as a member of the “Holos” party. The politician was one of the co-authors of the law on indigenous peoples of Ukraine and participated in the development of the Strategy for the Deoccupation of Crimea. Following a full-scale invasion, he joined the negotiating group with Russia, and on September 6, 2023, the Verkhovna Rada appointed him as the Minister of Defense of Ukraine.
Russian media intentionally distorted information presented in declarations to sow distrust among Ukrainians towards the military-political leadership. Previously, we debunked the fake that a Russian passport belonging to Olena Zelenska was found in Crimea.
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