Now, 200 Ukrainian citizens have already requested asylum in Armenia. More than half of the asylum seekers are ethnic Armenians.

Nelly Davtyan, the Public Relations Director at the Migration Service of Armenia, told ARMENPRESS that 5938 Ukrainian citizens arrived to Armenia in the first quarter of 2022 (2079 in January, 1597 in February and 2262 in March), compared to the previous year’s 2531. Moreover, most of them (5631) left Armenia in the same first quarter. And from the remaining over 300 Ukrainians 200 applied for asylum.

If the asylum seekers get the refugee status, they will have the right of legal residence in Armenia and a conventional travel document which is valid in nearly 160 countries who have the same asylum procedures. Right now, the applications are being processed and could take up to 3 months – the standard processing time. However, whenever the first precedent decision is made, the rest (which are similar cases) will proceed faster.

Russia attacked Ukraine in late February, following what Moscow describes as Kiev’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, first signed in 2014, and Moscow’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The German- and French-brokered protocols were designed to give the breakaway regions special status within the Ukrainian state.

The Kremlin has since demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two republics by force.

Anna Grigoryan