KALININGRAD, March 29. /TASS/. More than 450,000 forcibly displaced refugees from Ukraine have sought shelter in Russia since 2014. Kirill Adzinov, head of the Directorate for the Organization of Visa Issuance of the Main Directorate for Migration Issues of the Russian Interior Ministry, said about it at a session of the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference (BSPC) in Kaliningrad on Friday.
"The Russian Federation received more than 450,000 people who asked for shelter. About 18 billion rubles [$277.8 million] was spent for events connected with their reception, accommodation and medical treatment," Adzinov reported.
A total of 271,000 Ukrainian citizens sought temporary shelter in Russia in 2014, 149,000 people in 2015, 22,000 in 2016 and 9,500 in 2017. The Russian Interior Ministry is constantly monitoring the work with the people who are seeking for shelter on Russian territory, he noted.
A session of the working group of the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference on migration and integration is held in the Kaliningrad Region for the first time. Head of the delegation of the Russian Federal Assembly in the BSPC Valentina Pivnenko, Vice-Chair of the BSPC Working Group on Migration and Integration Carola Veit, representatives for some non-commercial organizations, experts from Russia, Germany, Sweden and Latvia are taking part in the session. They are discussing migration problems, including illegal migration, the integration of migrants in the country of stay, problems of refugees, particular aspects of legislation in Russia and the Baltic region and so on.
