GENEVA, November 29. /TASS/. More than 480,000 residents of Ukraine have arrived in Russia since early April 2014 and more than 240,000 applied for temporary asylum or refugee status, State Secretary - First Deputy Head of the Russian Federal Migration Service (FMS) Yekaterina Yegorova told TASS on Friday.

She said at the 105th annual session of the Council of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) that Russia has created “an unprecedented liberal regime for their stay.” “We extend the period of stay for those who failed to get the status, increased the quota for issuing temporary residence permits, issue work permits without quotas... And also, they certainly have the possibility to give temporary asylum within three days,” he said.

“Maximally broad opportunities for the participation in the state programme for assistance to voluntary resettlement of compatriots” have been created for those who got temporary asylum in Russia. “This opens the shortest way for getting Russian citizenship,” the FMS first deputy head said.

Russia that has an observer status in the IOM takes part in the Council annual sessions. “This venue allows us to exchange experience,” said Yegorova. According to her, the work of the current session has shown that Russia is within “the general migration trend” and in some aspects is ahead of the partners in terms of the use of information technology, in particular, “in the sphere of countering illegal migration.” “We have now considerably broadened possibilities for legal entry and stay in Russia,” the FMS official said.

Russia’s achievements have been positively assessed by IOM. In particular, IOM Director General William Lacy Swing, according to Yegorova who met him, “assessed the possibilities that we now create for labour migrants arriving under a visa-free procedure and appreciated Russia’s work for receiving forced migrants.” IOM “realises that Russia is really doing major work in the migration sphere.”.