Recently, provincial offices—which, to put it mildly, had already been processing applications for residence permits submitted by foreigners rather slowly—have ceased operations entirely. This is all because the legislature included Article 100d in the so-called special act on assistance to Ukrainian citizens in connection with the armed conflict, which suspended, until September 30, 2025, the right of foreign nationals to file requests for expedited action and complaints regarding inaction in such cases. Although this provision, like the entire special act, applies to Ukrainian citizens, government agencies began using it as a pretext for inaction in cases involving all foreign nationals, regardless of their citizenship. This practice was quickly challenged by administrative courts, which confirmed in their rulings that the aforementioned provision applies only to cases involving Ukrainian citizens. Nevertheless, some government agencies remain inactive and, in their correspondence with foreign nationals, state that the aforementioned provision entitles them to do nothing until September 2025. It’s interesting to wonder how these officials are thinking—do they not realize that at some point in the future this provision will cease to apply, and that it will then be difficult to catch up on the backlog? Could it be that thinking in such terms is foreign to them?
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