You're reading: The Times: Moscow offers passports to one million people in eastern Ukraine

The Times: Moscow offers passports to one million people in eastern Ukraine

Published June 11, 2020 at 8:15 am

A passenger of the train that arrived from Moscow to Kyiv, evacuating Ukrainian citizens as the country shut its borders to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, leaves the train holding a Russian passport, on March 29, 2020. While the train was only meant for Ukrainians, the government reported that some Russian citizens were allowed to board it in Moscow, too.

Photo by Oleg Petrasiuk

Moscow plans to hand out passports to at least a million people living in separatist-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine by the end of the year in a move that is likely to complicate peace efforts. President Putin said last year that residents of the Kremlin-backed so-called Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics could receive passports.