ST PETERSBURG, June 20, /ITAR-TASS/. At least 8,000 people of those who have crossed the Russian border from Ukraine's embattled eastern regions reside in temporary accommodation centres, with 2,000 out of them having been granted the status of refugees, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets told reporters on Friday specifying that the situation was very dynamic and figures had been increasing from day to day.

Most of these centres are located in Russia’s southern Rostov Region, she said, adding that all necessary assistance is being provided to them.

“We have calculated the plans taking into consideration that mainly mothers with children are arriving and many children will have to start their school year in Russia,” she said, adding that these opportunities would be created.

ussian institutions of high learning have reserved 18,000 state-funded places for children from Crimea and Sevastopol who finished school this year, Russian Vice-Premier told journalists.

She said the initial quotas had been increased by 5,000 places.

“We have created conditions for targeted and preferential enrollment of school-leavers from Crimea and Sevastopol because they could not take the State Unified Exam. So, they will have to take entrance exams on order to get enrolled,” Golodets stressed.

The vice-premier’s press service told Itar-Tass that 1,800 school-leavers in Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol had already said they would take entrance exams to institutions of high learning in other Russian regions.

Institutions of high learning in St. Petersburg are ready to enroll more than 400 school-leavers from Crimea and Sevastopol, Nikolai Veshev, an academic secretary of the St. Petersburg Council of Rectors, told Itar-Tass on Friday. He clarified that children from Crimea would be equally distributed among the institutions of high learning (about 30 people per one educational establishment).

Sixty school-leavers from Crimea and Sevastopol will be able to study at the St. Petersburg Polytechnics University and the St. Petersburg State University.

The Leningrad region is also ready to provide about a hundred state-funded places for Crimean school-leavers.