Annotation

Stability is recognized de jure as one of the fundamental characteristics defining Russian citizenship. This characteristic is interpreted in constitutional interpretations and legal doctrine as the continuity and stability of citizenship. In reality, these criteria only characterize citizenship acquired by birth. Individuals recognized as citizens in other ways may lose it involuntarily. This article revises the existing legislative construct of citizenship as a stable connection between a citizen and the state. Citizenship status is, first and foremost, the scope of rights and privileges arising from the individual's public-law relationship with the state. Those who possess this status are granted protection and patronage both within the country and abroad. Without a legal connection, stability is nothing more than a fiction. To evaluate it as an autonomous characteristic of citizenship, it is appropriate to attribute it a value-based meaning as a factor in the political and legal identity of the citizen and the state, based on loyalty and socially useful behavior.