MOSCOW. Feb 16 (Interfax) - The fact that Russian passports have been issued to citizens of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics does not breach the Minsk Agreements in any way, and such claims of Kyiv are irrelevant, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday.
"Such practices do not violate the Minsk Agreements, which is clear to everyone who reads this short and highly specific text at least once. Hence, these are irrelevant claims," Peskov said.
Moscow has repeatedly explained that citizens of the self-proclaimed republics have extraordinary social problems, "since they have been abandoned by their homeland, their own country, Ukraine, in terms of travel, social and financial services, etc.," Peskov said. "This is the actual reason for the Russian practice, the issuance of passports for humanitarian considerations. Russia issues passports to citizens of both the self-proclaimed republics and many other countries of the world. This is a rather common practice," he said.