VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday a decision to give residents of Ukrainian rebel regions fast-track access to Russian passports was no different from what European Union states were already doing.
Speaking to reporters at the end of a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Putin said that both Romania and Hungary grant citizenship to their own ethnic kin living outside their borders.
He said it was strange that Kiev had reacted angrily to the Russian move on passports. On Ukraine’s president-elect, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, he said Moscow was willing to work with him if he implemented an international peace accord on east Ukraine.
(Reporting by Vkladimir Soldatkin and Maria Vasilyeva; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Gareth Jones)
