PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, September 13. /TASS/. Russia has always received and will always receive all who fall under the category of refugees, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with the Sunday Time news programme on Russia’s Channel One.
"Russia fulfils its liabilities under international conventions," he said. "We have been receiving and will always receive all those who fall under the category of refugees."
"Sometimes, we do it far beyond the framework of criteria that are to be used. I mean refugees from Ukraine - we have about one million such people," he said. "Notably, a larger part of them - from one third to 50% - ask for Russian citizenship or some other permanent status in our country."
"Many are accommodated at people’s houses but there are also refugee centres in the Rostov and other regions," he noted. "They are recognized as exemplary by the Office of the United Nations High Comissioner for Refugees."
"Of course, we have refugees from the Middle East, including from Yemen and Syria," the Russian top diplomat said. "These are people who came here at the initial stages of those conflicts.".