MOSCOW - Approximately 300,000 foreigners were granted Russian citizenship in the first six months of 2020, director of the Russian Interior Ministry's General Administration for Migration Issues Valentina Kazakova said in an interview with the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper published on Monday.
"As regards such absolute figures, around 300,000 people gained citizenship of the Russian Federation in the first half of the year," she said.
"Of course, this was aided by changes that have been made to legislation this year. For instance, amendments took effect in June, cutting the time of considering citizenship applications from six months to three months," she said.
When asked by the newspaper whether the coronavirus pandemic has impacted the migration situation in the country, Kazakova said that "as the borders were closed in March, a large number of foreign citizens have been unable to enter the territory of Russia."
"But we continue working actively with [foreign] citizens who are in Russia. Taking into consideration the president's decrees which set a special procedure for foreign citizens' legal status in the territory of Russian Federation, all migration authorities are accepting foreign citizens," she said.
"Since March, we have received applications from more than 1.5 million foreign citizens who wanted to regulate their legal status, in other words receive permits and, consequently, have their visas extended," Kazakova said. (Interfax)