"According to available data, about 2.8 million people have been formalized for Russian citizenship in diplomatic missions and consular offices of Russia from 1992 to the present," Klimov said in an interview.
The majority of the applications were filed either in post-Soviet countries or countries with large Russian-speaking populations, such as Bulgaria, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States, the diplomat said.