Russia grants over 100,000 citizenships

Russia has given citizenship to 125,000 people from rebel-held parts of eastern Ukraine over the past seven months, Russia’s interior minister on Monday said.

“More than 160,000 applications have been received by centres in the Rostov region (which borders Ukraine),” Vladimir Kolokoltsev said in comments released by his office.

“Citizenship has already been granted to 125,000 applicants,” he said as Russian President Vladimir Putin was set to meet Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, for peace talks in Paris.

Putin signed a law in April to expedite procedures to grant citizenship to residents of war-torn eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk regions.