Ukraine calls for more weapons to punish Russia for citizenship decree

Ukraine has demanded tough new sanctions on Russia and increased shipments of heavy weapons from the West to punish Moscow's civic decree.

On Monday, Russian leader Vladimir Putin signed a decree extending fast-track for Russian citizens to all Ukrainians.

Ukraine's foreign ministry said the Kremlin's move was a violation of state sovereignty and did not conform to the principles of international law.

Until recently, only people who lived in Ukraine's eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, and southern regions of Zaporozhye and Kherson, most of which were under Russian control, were eligible.

But now Moscow has extended the Russian naturalisation procedure to all Ukrainian citizens.

From the first launch of the program for residents of Donetsk and Luhansk in 2019 to this year, more than 720,000 residents of rebel-held areas of the two regions, or about 18 percent of the population, received Russian passports.

An accelerated procedure was also offered to residents of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions at the end of May, three months after Russia invaded Ukraine.

The first Russian passports were said to have been issued there a month ago, and there have been reports of some citizens having their Ukrainian passports confiscated.

Some see it as part of Puin's political influence strategy, which includes introducing Russian rubles into occupied Ukrainian territory and potentially leading to the annexation of more Ukrainian territory.

In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula on the Black Sea. The publication of the citizenship certificate came hours after the heavy shelling in Kharkov on Monday.

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At least six people were killed and 31 wounded in a three-rocket attack by Russian troops on Ukraine's second city. Russia's Defense Ministry said the attack hit the deployment site of Ukraine's "nationalist battalion", while Kharkiv regional governor Olekh Sinehubov said the shelling came from multiple rocket launchers, including wounded as young as 4 years old. of children, said one missile destroyed a school and another destroyed the school. A residential building was hit, while a third landed near a warehouse.

Russia continued its attacks in eastern Ukraine, Luhansk Region Governor Sheryl Hayday said Russian troops carried out five rocket attacks and four artillery shells against settlements bordering the Donetsk region. The Luhansk and Donetsk regions form the industrial heartland of eastern Ukraine, known as the Donbass, where separatist insurgents have been fighting Ukrainian troops since 2014.

Earlier this month, Russia captured the last major stronghold of the Ukrainian resistance movement in the city of Luhansk.