Russia is weighing up stripping the passports of naturalised citizens accused of involvement with the Islamic State group, President Vladimir Putin said in an interview released on Wednesday.
“According to the Russian constitution, we cannot strip anyone of citizenship,” Putin told Mir television station.
“But we can cancel the decisions that served as the basis for obtaining Russian citizenship. We are holding consultations with our lawyers and I think that such decisions will be made in the very near future.”
The comments come in the wake of a deadly attack on the Saint Petersburg metro by an alleged Russian citizen who was born in mainly muslim Kyrgyzstan in ex-Soviet Central Asia.
No one has claimed responsibility for the bombing, but the authorities say they are probing ties to Islamic State jehadis.