Russian President Vladimir Putin says some Russians might lose citizenship for joining the so-called Islamic state (IS) group.
Putin, in an interview with the Mir media company published on April 12, said Russia does not intend to act in the same way as Kazakhstan, which is considering stripping suspected IS members of Kazakh citizenship.
Putin said the Russian Constitution does not provide for Russians being stripped of their citizenship, but suggested that naturalized Russian citizens might lose the citizenship if they join IS.
"We can cancel those decisions that served as a basis [for some] to obtain Russian citizenship," Putin said.
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev said on April 11 that a bill is under preparation allowing for authorities to deprive extremism and terrorism suspects of their Kazakh citizenship.
Nazarbaev said that based on intelligence data some 5,000 people from the former Soviet Union joined the IS group in Syria and Iraq in recent years.
