MOSCOW, July 27. /TASS/. Russian citizenship was obtained by over 300,000 people over the past six months which is almost twice the number compared to the previous year, head of the Russian Interior Ministry's department on migration Valentina Kazakova said in an interview with the Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily.

"We see an increase in applicants for the Russian citizenship, approximately more than twice the number compared to last year. To put it in raw numbers, this [means that] about more than 300,000 people obtained Russian citizenship during the half-year period," she said.

According to her, this situation is caused by the changes in the legislation that occurred during this year, including the reduction of the processing period of citizenship applications from six to three months. Additionally, citizens of Belarus and Ukraine are exempted from the interview procedure if they can qualify as native speakers of Russian.

Additionally the official noted that since March because of the border closing due to the pandemic not many foreigners were entering Russia. The main work concerns those who are in the country already.

"Considering the president’s decrees that specified a special procedure for defining a legal status of foreign citizens on Russian territory, all migration subdivisions receive foreign citizens. Since March, over 1.5 mln foreign nationals applied who want to regulate their legal status, that is, to receive permits, accordingly, to extend their visas," she noted saying that the decrease in applications of foreign nationals for various state services is approximately 30%.