24 September 2014, 14:58 GMT
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The number of asylum requests in Russia has surged by nearly 100 times since early 2014, the citizenship department head at Russia’s Federal Migration Service (FMS) said on Monday.
“In 2014-2015 there has been almost a 100-fold increase in the number of requests from all categories of applicants who seek asylum,” Valentina Kazakova said at a working meeting.
In 2014, Russia’s FMS received about 290,000 asylum requests, compared to some 3,000 applications in the proceeding years, Kazakova said. The refugees came from various countries, including Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, Kazakova said.
Russia has seen a dramatic influx of refugees from conflict-hit eastern Ukraine since June 2014. In late September, FMS head Konstantin Romodanovsky said that over 180,000 Ukrainians had applied for refugee status and been granted temporary asylum in Russia.
