Ihor Tyshkevich, an expert at the Ukrainian Institute of the Future, said on his Facebook page that since 2017, more than a million Ukrainian citizens have received Russian passports.
“Most Russian passports were issued in 2020 – 409,549. In 2017, 85,119 Ukrainians received Russian citizenship, in 2018 – 83,081, in 2019 – 299,422, and in January-June 2021 – 184,345”, – Tyshkevich said.
A resident of the city of Horlivka, which is located in the Donetsk People’s Republic, told the Ukrainian newspaper Telegraph that the procedure for obtaining a Russian passport is inexpensive and fast. According to him, the registration took about three months, and the total expenses amounted to no more than 1,500 rubles.
Recall that in 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree according to which residents of the LPR can obtain Russian citizenship in a simplified manner. Viktor Volodarsky, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, Eurasian Integration and Relations with Compatriots, said earlier that more than 611 thousand residents of the LPR and DPR received Russian passports.