UPDATE - Over 500,000 LPR, DPR Residents Received Russian Citizenship - Interior Ministry

LUHANSK (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st April, 2021) More than half a million residents of the self-proclaimed Luhansk and Donetsk people's republics (LPR and DPR) in Donbas have received Russian citizenship under a simplified procedure, LPR Interior Minister Igor Kornet said.

In April 2021, LPR leader Leonid Pasechnik said that since 2019, over 200,000 LPR residents had received Russian passports in line with the simplified procedure.

"Colossal work has been done, if we talk about two territories, about two republics. This is more than 500,000 passports. This is based on the presidential decree. But, in addition, residents of the Luhansk and Donetsk people's republics received Russian citizenship under other programs as well. That is, we can talk about a much larger figure," Kornet said in an interview published on the LPR Interior Ministry's website.

Kornet said that the number of residents of the LPR who received Russian passports had reached 205,000.

On April 24, 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on a simplified procedure to receive Russian passports by residents of Donbas self-proclaimed republics. He said the issue was humanitarian in nature, and Russia had no desire to create problems for Kiev. Less than a week later, Russian passport issuance centers were opened in the southern Russian Rostov Region. Residents of the LPR and DPR received the first passports of the Russian Federation under the simplified scheme on June 14, 2019.