Russia on Tuesday ramped up efforts to naturalize residents of separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine by opening its second building in as many days dedicated to issuing those people passports.
The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs touted the opening of a passport center in Pokrovsky, a town near the Ukrainian border, a day after establishing a similar facility in nearby Novoshakhtinsk, regional media reported.
Both centers were opened less than a week since Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law a decree on April 24 that allows residents of the occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine to apply for passports from Moscow under a “simplified procedure,” effectively enabling them to receive Russian citizenship without living within Russia’s border.
More than five years since rebels seized the regions in tandem with Russia annexing Crimea from Ukraine, the maneuver quickly widened a rift between the former Soviet Union states and spurred condemnation from Mr. Putin’s critics in Kiev and the U.S. State Department.
Ukraine’s mission to the United Nations has asked the organization to intervene, and the U.S. Embassy in Kiev referred to the order last week as an “absurd and destabilizing decree.”
More recently, the Ukraine Foreign Ministry said in a statement Tuesday that Russia is “manifestly demonstrating its absolute disregard for the norms and principles of international law.”
“Ukraine is urging its international partners not to recognize and not to accept documents issued by Russia in violation of the Ukrainian constitution and laws to citizens of Ukraine living in the territories in Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine that are temporarily occupied by Russia, as well as any transactions carried out with such documents,” the statement said.
Kirill Alzinov, a spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, said the passport center in Novoshakhtinsk received 80 applications within a day of opening Monday, the Interfax news agency reported. The first passports are likely to be issued within three months, he added.
Ukrainians living in Donetsk and Luhansk do not have to renounce their citizenship to apply or receive Russian passports, according to the foreign ministry in Moscow, state-run media reported.
Moscow has denied providing military support to pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk, contrary to evidence touted by U.S. and Ukrainian intelligence agencies. Mr. Putin previously denied for more than a year that masked members of the Russian military were responsible for seizing Crimea during the 2014 annexation.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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