In a move to increase Moscow's influence over war-torn Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday expanded a fast-track system for getting Russian citizenship to include all Ukrainians.

Only citizens of the separatist Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine, as well as those in the southern Zaporizhzhia and Kherson areas, major portions of which are currently under Russian control, were previously qualified to apply for the simplified passport process.

Putin Expands Russian Passports

Putin's signing of a passport decree, which also applies to stateless persons in Ukraine, was cited by Dmytro Klueba, the foreign minister of Ukraine, as evidence of his predatory appetites.

More than 720,000 persons living in the rebel-held territories of the two regions between 2019, when the procedure was initiated for residents of Donetsk and Luhansk and this year (or around 18% of the population) have gotten Russian passports.

Residents of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson areas were also given the option to use the fast-track process in late May, three months after Russia invaded Ukraine. The implementation of the Russian currency in the Ukrainian area under occupation and the potential future annexation of more Ukrainian territory into the Russian Federation all appear to be components of Putin's political influence strategy. In 2014, Russia already annexed the Crimean Peninsula of Ukraine, according to the Washington Post.

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Russia Attacks Ukraine's Second-Largest City

The passport news came hours after the Russian bombing of the second-largest city in Ukraine on Monday leaving at least six people dead and 31 injured, according to local authorities and prosecutors. The second-largest city in Ukraine, Kharkiv, was the target of three missile strikes by Russian forces, which one official referred to as pure terrorism.

Two days had passed since a Russian missile attack in eastern Ukraine hit apartment complexes. On Monday, the number of fatalities in the attack on the village of Chasiv Yar reached 31. Nine individuals have been pulled from the debris while others are reportedly still trapped, according to emergency personnel.

Three buildings in a neighborhood primarily inhabited by factory workers were destroyed by the attack late on Saturday. The hamlet of Chasiv Yar, which is also the house of Ukraine's president, was the target, according to the Russian Defense Ministry; and more than 300 nationalists were murdered there.

Serhiy Haidai, the regional governor of Luhansk, reported Monday that Russian forces continued their attacks in eastern Ukraine, carrying out five missile strikes and four rounds of shelling against towns close to the Donetsk region's border.

The Donbas, or the eastern industrial core of Ukraine, is made up of the Luhansk and Donetsk areas, and it is here that separatist insurgents have been engaged in combat with Ukrainian forces since 2014. Earlier this month, Russia seized Lysychansk, the last significant center of Ukrainian resistance in Luhansk, CBS News reported.

Oleksiy Arestovych, a contentious adviser to Volodymyr Zelensky, has alleged that twelve top Russian officers had died in a Ukrainian attack on a strategically significant airport close to Kherson.

Since Vladimir Putin's forces took it at the start of the war, Kyiv has frequently attacked the airport; the most recent attack is said to have used HIMARS rockets that the United States provided.

While rescuers are removing the debris left by a Russian strike on a five-story apartment building in the Donetsk village of Chasiv Yar, Ukrainian authorities have pronounced nine more persons dead.

Nine individuals have been rescued from the building's rubble, and the death toll now stands at 24, according to emergency services.

Kharkiv, the second-largest city in Ukraine, reportedly saw an additional three fatalities and 31 injuries as a result of what authorities believe to be Russian multiple rocket launcher fire targeting residential areas. Moscow claimed to have destroyed the staging areas where foreign and Ukrainian fighters were to be deployed, as per Independent.

Related Article: Russia-Ukraine War: Vladimir Putin's Forces Kill 29 in Donetsk Attack, Ukraine Strikes Back in Kherson

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