DONETSK, February 11. /TASS/. Around 400,000 residents of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) have received Russian passports, DPR leader, Denis Pushilin, said on Friday.

"Around 400,000 Russian passports have been issued in the Donetsk People’s Republic," he said.

The DPR’s Migration Service said in January that some 365,000 residents of the republic had received Russian passports. Governor Vasily Golubev of Russia’s Rostov Region said back then that more than 720,000 people in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) had been granted Russian citizenship under a simplified procedure.

On April 24, 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree simplifying passport issuance procedures to the residents of the DPR and LPR. The first passports were issued on July 14, 2019. Passports to DPR and LPR residents are issued in the Rostov region.