As Russian missiles struck a key Ukrainian city, Russian President Vladimir Putin has expanded a fast-track procedure for obtaining Russian citizenship to all Ukrainians, another effort to strengthen Moscow’s influence over war-torn Ukraine.
Until recently, only residents of Ukraine’s separatist eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as well as residents of the southern Zaporizhzhia and the Kherson regions, large parts of which are now under Russian control, were eligible to apply for the simplified passport procedure.
Between 2019, when the procedure was introduced for the residents of Donetsk and Luhansk, and this year, more than 720,000 people living in the rebel-held areas in the two regions — about 18 per cent of the population – have received Russian passports.
In late May, three months after Russia invaded Ukraine, the fast-track procedure was also offered to residents of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.
The Russian passport move appears to be part of Putin’s political influence strategy, which has also involved introduction of the Russian rouble in occupied territory in Ukraine and could eventually result in the annexation of more Ukrainian territory into the Russian Federation. Russia already annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula on the Black Sea in 2014.
The Russian president set the stage for such moves even before Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine, writing an essay last summer claiming that Russians and Ukrainians are one people and attempting to diminish the legitimacy of Ukraine as an independent nation. Reports have surfaced of Russian authorities confiscating Ukrainian passports from some citizens.
The passport announcement came hours after Russian shelling of Ukraine’s second-largest city on Monday killed at least six people and injured 31, prosecutors and local officials said. Russian troops launched three missile strikes on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, in an attack one official described as “absolute terrorism.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said the attacks struck at the points of deployment for Ukraine’s “nationalist battalions.” Kharkiv regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said on Telegram that the shelling came from multiple rocket launchers, and those wounded and hospitalised included children aged four and 16.
“Only civilian structures — a shopping center and houses of peaceful Kharkiv residents — came under the fire of the Russians. Several shells hit the yards of private houses. Garages and cars were also destroyed. Several fires broke out,” Syniehubov wrote.
Earlier, he said one missile destroyed a school, another hit a residential building, while the third landed near warehouse facilities.
“All (three were launched) exclusively on civilian objects. This is absolute terrorism!” Syniehubov said.
Kharkiv resident Alexander Peresolin said the attacks came without warning, with a blast so fierce he lost consciousness.
The strikes came two days after a Russian rocket attack struck apartment buildings in eastern Ukraine. The death toll in that attack on the town of Chasiv Yar rose to 30 on Monday. Nine people have been rescued from the rubble but more are still believed trapped, emergency officials said.
By Mstyslav Chernov in Kharkiv
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