MOSCOW, August 11 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s Federal Migration Service said it wants to close all temporary shelters for Ukrainian refugees by September 1, according to a statement in the government project.
“Take measures to remove by September 1, 2014, all temporary shelters throughout the subjects of the Russian Federation for citizens of Ukraine and individuals without citizenship; to cease the setting up of new temporary shelters,” the government statement reads.
The project does however allow for subjects of the Russian Federation to create temporary shelters for refugees before sending them to other Russian regions, but not for more than three days.
The temporary shelters to be closed by September 1 include Crimea, Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Kursk, Leningrad, Rostov, and Moscow regions, as well as the cities of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Sevastopol.
The project also specifies that the Migration Service is arranging transportation of Ukrainian citizens and those with no citizenship to the country’s regions. 120 employees of the agency will be deployed in Rostov Region and Crimea, which house most refugees from Ukraine.
Amid ongoing clashes between independence supporters and Kiev Special Forces in the Ukrainian East many local citizens have made a decision to leave their homes and cross into neighboring Russia.
According to the recent update by the United Nations, more than 730,000 Ukrainian citizens have left Ukraine for Russia since the beginning of the conflict. As the Russian Federal Migration Service reported last week, about 60,000 of Ukrainians requested refugee status or temporary asylum in Russia. A total of 703 temporary facilities for refugees from eastern Ukraine have been arranged across Russia accommodating roughly 51,500 people.
