MOSCOW, August 11 (RIA Novosti) - Russia may see up to one million Ukrainian refugees at once if Ukrainian special forces launch a full-scale assault on Donetsk and Luhansk, Russian Civil Chamber member Georgy Fyodorov said Monday.
"The biggest problem will arise, in my view, if a full-scale assault on Donetsk and Luhansk takes place. In the course of several days, we could get from 500,000 to one million people instantaneously crossing our border," Fyodorov, the deputy head of the Russian Civic Chamber's Committee for Coordination of Aid to Residents of Ukraine, said at a press conference at the Rossiya Segodnya news agency.
Fyodorov said Russia may already be hosting up to one million forced immigrants from Ukraine. According to UN data, 730,000 people have left Ukraine for Russia since the beginning of the conflict between independence supporters and Kiev’s Special Forces, but some may not have been registered, yet, Fyodorov said.
Russia’s Federal Migration Service said earlier in the day that it plans to close all temporary shelters for Ukrainian refugees by September 1 and arrange to transport them to the country’s regions.
Last week, the Russian Federal Migration Service said that about 60,000 Ukrainians had requested refugee status or temporary asylum in Russia. A total of 703 temporary facilities for refugees from eastern Ukraine have been established across Russia, accommodating roughly 51,500 people.
