Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the Russian State Border Service to take appropriate steps to tighten control on the Russian-Ukrainian border to curb illegal crossings. ITAR-TASS reports that this information comes from the Russian president’s press-service.
Recently, the Russian authorities have registered a growing number of Ukrainian citizens wishing to enter Russian territory. For example, on Friday 6 June, Russian children’s rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov reported that over 12,000 people had arrived in the Rostov Region from Ukraine. On 5 June, he said that over 8,000 Ukrainian citizens crossed the border on Russia in 24 hours.
On 4 June, an emergency rule was introduced in 15 districts of the Rostov Region that borders Ukraine, with the aim of guaranteeing refugee support where there is temporary accommodation for people recently arrive from south-eastern Ukraine.
On Saturday, Lugansk resistance fighters claimed they control most of the Russian-Ukrainian border. Head of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) Valery Bolotov explained to RIA Novosti that border control is needed mostly for letting refugees pass across. He pointed out a large number of refugees, especially from the Donetsk Region.
Thousands of Ukrainians are flooding across the border into Russia to escape the armed conflict, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Thursday.
Speaking a day after Ukraine denied a mass exodus, Medvedev said several thousand Ukrainians had applied for refugee status - even though Ukrainian nationals have the automatic right to stay three months in Russia.
"Before it was only a handful (asking for refugee status), now the number applying has grown to 4,000 people, that's an unprecedented situation."
"A stream of people is heading into the (southern Russian) Rostov region and partly into other regions. It's mainly children and the people accompanying them. Their numbers are in the thousands," Medvedev said at a televised government meeting.
"People are very scared and frightened."
Ukraine said in a statement on Wednesday that just over 11,400 people crossed into Russia from Ukraine on June 3, a couple of hundred more than on the previous day, and that almost the same numbers came across from Russia.
"On the state border with Russia, not one Ukrainian citizen has expressed a desire to receive refugee status in Russia," the migration service said.
The Rostov region's governor Vasily Golubev declared a state of emergency in 15 cities close to the Ukrainian border on Wednesday, citing an influx of Ukrainians from the conflict zone.
"The emergency regime will allow us to more efficiently organise additional temporary accommodation for refugees from southeastern Ukraine," Golubev wrote on Twitter.
Russian children's rights commissioner Pavel Astakhov wrote on Instagram on Thursday that more than 8,300 Ukrainians had entered the Rostov region in the past 24 hours.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has dismissed the G7 countries' statement about "the restrained actions" of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the country's southeastern regions as "infinitely cynical".
"The Ukrainian authorities are refusing to see any humanitarian problems. They are even speaking about the absence of refugees. It is a lie," Medvedev said at a Russian government session on Thursday.
"The so-called G7 even dares to talk about the "restrained actions" of the Ukrainian army against its own people. Cynicism knows no limit in this case," he said.
A state of emergency has been declared in Rostov region of Russia due to an influx of refugees from neighboring Ukraine. The new arrivals are currently being allocated to the local recreation centers, and the authorities help them with the processing.
The Rostov region authorities on Wednesday said they intend to instate a state of emergency as the local agencies are mobilizing to provide accommodations to a large number of refugees from Ukraine. People are fleeing en masse from the neighboring Lugansk and Donetsk regions of Ukraine where intense fighting between the Ukrainian military and local self-defense forces takes place.
Refugees are being greeted at the border and directed to the local recreation centers where the authorities assist them with the migrant processing procedure and provide them with the temporary residence permits. Two additional recreation centers were allocated as temporary refugee housing zones and could accommodate up to 550 people.
"We've provided shelter to 210 people: 122 children and 88 adults, including 15 elderly. These are mostly women and children from the cities of Slavyansk and Lugansk. Many of them have haven't slept for 3-4 days," said Andrei Vdovchenko, director of one of those recreation centers. "It was our governor’s decision to direct the refugees to our center for temporary housing and I completely agree with it," he added. "Many of them are concerned about the well-being of their relatives back in Ukraine, so we’ve provided them with Russian SIM cards so they could call them."
The refugees are provided with housing, food, basic necessities and access to counselling services, Vasily Golubev, governor of Rostov region, said. He also added that numerous NGOs and ordinary citizens have already applied to the regional government for assistance in providing shelter for women and children fleeing the Ukrainian border regions.
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_06_07/Putin-orders-Border-Service-to-tighten-Russian-Ukrainian-border-security-rule-out-illegal-crossing-Kremlin-0769/
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_06_07/Putin-orders-Border-Service-to-tighten-Russian-Ukrainian-border-security-rule-out-illegal-crossing-Kremlin-0769/
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