As Russian missiles hit a key Ukrainian city, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday extended an accelerated procedure to obtain Russian citizenship for all Ukrainians, an effort to bolster Moscow’s influence in a war-torn Ukraine.
Until recently, citizens of the Eastern Ukrainian separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as citizens of the southern regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, many of which are now under Russian control, could run. the simplified passport procedure.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Klueba said Putin’s signing of a decree on passports, which also applies to stateless citizens in Ukraine, is an example of his “predatory appetites. “
“Russia is the simplified procedure for issuing passports to tighten the noose around the neck of citizens of the temporarily occupied territories of our state, forcing them to engage in the criminal activities of professional administrations and the Russian aggression army,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said. Ministry said. Ministry added in a press release.
Between 2019, when the procedure was carried out for citizens of Donetsk and Luhansk, and this year, more than 720,000 people living in rebel-held areas in either region, about 18 percent of the population, obtained Russian passports.
At the end of May, three months after Russia invaded Ukraine, the fast-track procedure was also presented to citizens of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.
The Russian passport motion appears to be a component of Putin’s political influence strategy, which has also been linked to the arrival of the Russian ruble on the occupied territory of Ukraine and may lead to the annexation of more Ukrainian territories to the Russian Federation. Russia already annexed the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine in 2014.
The Russian president set the level for such measures even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, writing an essay last summer in which he claimed that Russians and Ukrainians are other people and sought to diminish Ukraine’s legitimacy as an independent nation. There have been reports of the russian government confiscating Ukrainian passports from some citizens.
The passport announcement came hours after the Russian bombing of Ukraine’s second-largest city on Monday killed at least six other people and wounded 31, prosecutors and local officials said. Russian troops launched three missile movements in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. , in an attack that one official called “absolute terrorism. “
The Russian Defense Ministry said the strikes affected the deployment problems of Ukrainian “nationalist battalions. “Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said on Telegram that the bombing came from several rocket launchers and that among the wounded and hospitalized were children over the ages of four and 16.
“Only the civilian structures, a shopping mall and houses of the non-violent population of Kharkiv, received fire from the Russians. Several shells landed in the courtyards of private homes. Garages and cars were also destroyed. Several fires broke out,” Syniehubov wrote.
Earlier, he said a missile destroyed a school, hit a residential building, while the third landed near warehouses.
“All (all three were thrown) at civilian objects. This is absolute terrorism!”Syniehubov said.
Alexander Peresolin, a resident of Kharkiv, said the attacks came with a warning, with an explosion so violent that he lost consciousness. Neighbors took him to the basement, where he regained consciousness.
“Me sitting and talking to my wife,” he said. I didn’t perceive what happened. “
The moves came two days after a Russian rocket attack hit apartment buildings in eastern Ukraine. The death toll from the attack on the city of Chasiv Yar rose to 31 on Monday. get trapped, emergency officials said.
Saturday night’s attack destroyed 3 buildings in a residential domain used basically by other people who drive in the factories. The Russian Defense Ministry insisted Monday that Shasiv Yar’s target “was a Ukrainian territorial defense brigade and that “more than 300 nationalists” were killed. The city is also the hometown of the Ukrainian president.
Russian strikes continued in eastern Ukraine, with Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Haidai saying on Monday that Russian forces had carried out five missile movements and four rounds of shelling, hitting settlements on the border with the Donetsk region.
The Luhansk and Donetsk regions are the commercial hub of eastern Ukraine, known as Donbass, where separatist rebels have been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014. Earlier this month, Russia captured the last major stronghold of the Ukrainian resistance in Luhansk, the city of Lysychansk.