MOSCOW. March 12 (Interfax) - There are about 2.5 million Ukrainians currently in Russia, says Liliya Arestova, Deputy Director of the Citizenship Department at Russia's Federal Migration Service (FMS).

 

"Today there are 2.5 million Ukrainians in Russia, and 286,566 of them have been granted temporary asylum in our country," she told the Federation Council's committee for public support to southeast Ukrainians on Thursday.

 

Over 40,000 Ukrainians have applied for residence permit since the beginning of 2015, she added

 

"A total 1,251 people have applied for temporary asylum in the past 24 hours alone," she said

 

Two hundred fifty-four Ukrainians have been classified as refugees over the past year, she said.

 

"Over 300,000 people have asked the FMS to grant them temporary asylum since the conflict began," she said

 

For his part, the head of the committee, upper house deputy speaker Yury Vorobyov said that the committee is ready to serve as a platform for organizing a meeting between parliamentarians from France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine (Normandy Group).

 

"We are ready to provide our platform for such a parliamentary dialogue. Both Federation Council and State Duma speakers spoke about the expediency and utility of meetings between parliamentarians from Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine as part of implementation of the Minsk agreement. The parliamentary dimension could become an important mechanism in this issue," Vorobyov said.

 

Very soon the committee will send a letter to Verkhovna Rada, as well as parliaments in the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, Germany and France, to ask them to form their delegations, he added.

 

"In this letter, we will propose precisely our committee as a platform for such an inter-parliamentary dialogue," Vorobyov said.

 

 

 

12 March 2015