Stahlke Adoption

Ukrainian Passports

When we were in Ukraine during the summer of 2005, the children were issued Ukrainian passports before we applied at the US embassy for their visas. The process to obtain a Ukrainian passport was done at the state level and was very fast.

Last Wednesday, the US embassy in Kyiv published a notice, which you can read at
kiev.usembassy.gov/amcit_adoptions_notice_0725_eng.html

The Ukrainian government has recently decided to issue a new type of passport. Some of the offices at the state level have not yet received their blank passport forms, so applications at this time are often sent to Kyiv for processing. Because many states are sending them to Kyiv, there's been a backlog. The Ukrainian government estimates the delay at 10 days, but some adoptive parents from the US have reported waits exceeding one month.

To help with this problem, the US embassy is still accepting the old-style passports, and the Ukrainian government is allowing the states to issue the old-style ones for adopted children. This is possible, of course, only if they haven't run out of old-style blanks, which are no longer being printed.

This issue may not affect us at all if it is resolved before we travel. But we're keeping it in mind as a possibility as we plan how to cover everything while we're gone.

posted by Stahlkes @ 10:42 PM