ROSTOV-ON-DON, June 19. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia has simplified citizenship granting procedures for Ukrainian refugees, who will not be required to confirm withdrawal from Ukraine’s citizenship, chief of Russia’s Federal Migration Service Konstantin Romodanovsky said on Thursday at a meeting with volunteers helping Ukrainian refugees.

According to official statistics, nearly 19,000 Ukrainians have been driven to Russia by the ongoing conflict in that country. They found shelter in Russia’s Southern, Central and Northwestern federal districts, and in Crimea. More than a half of refugees - some 10,000 people - are staying at their relatives’ or friends’. As many as 8,800 people, including 4,500 children, have been accommodated at temporary accommodation centres, where there are provided with meals, medical and psychological services. If the situation with forced migrants becomes still more difficult, such centres will be organized in Russia’s Urals and Volga federal districts.

The Kremlin administration chief Sergei Ivanov arrived on Thursday in Russia’s southern Rostov region to inspect the situation with refugees coming from conflict-gripped southeastern regions of Ukraine. People are literally squeezed out of Ukraine to Russia, with no humanitarian corridors provided for those who want to leave areas of combat operations, Sergei Ivanov, the Kremlin administration chief, said.

“I would refrain from speaking about political matters, but no humanitarian corridors have yet been provided. People are fleeing on their own, roads are coming under gunfire. It looks like there are simply being squeezed out of the country, mostly to Russia,” he said at a meeting with volunteers and representatives of charity organizations helping Ukrainian refugees.