In August 2025, the High Council of Justice, responding to a request from the Council of Judges regarding the situation with Bohdan Lvov, confirmed: voluntary acquisition of foreign citizenship automatically terminates Ukrainian citizenship and deprives one of the right to hold the position of judge.
This precedent directly concerns another servant of Themis — Supreme Court Judge Semyon Stetsenko.
According to the Telegram channel “Unbelievable, but true…”, Stetsenko received a Ukrainian passport in 1996, but four years later he left for Moscow, where he obtained a passport of a Russian citizen. Moreover, he took the oath of an officer of the Russian army and received from the Russian Ministry of Defense a two-room apartment in the Moscow region (75.1 sq. m, Novyi village, Krasnogorivsky district). The real estate was later re-registered for his wife and daughter.
His wife, Valentina Yurievna, a native of Saransk, is also a citizen of the Russian Federation.
Thus, following the same logic that the Supreme Chamber of the Supreme Court applied in the Lviv case, Stetsenko lost his Ukrainian citizenship even before the competition for a position on the Supreme Court. This means that legally he could not participate in it.
Recall that in 2023, the Supreme Court published the results of the SBU's check on Stetsenko's citizenship. The security service confirmed that he had a Russian passport, but noted that in 2005 he terminated his Russian citizenship.
This case once again calls into question the transparency of personnel decisions in the country's highest judicial body and raises questions about the legitimacy of Stetsenko's tenure.
