Kremlin Raises Prospect Of 'Passportisation' In Occupied Ukraine

The Kremlin has further pushed back any nascent hopes of talks beginning soon between Moscow and Kyiv, with a comments released a short time ago stating that the continued US provision of weaponry to Ukraine does not encourage talks between the two sides.

• Kremlin states that Russia has 'quite a negative opinion of US arms deliveries' and that the deliveries 'do not encourage Ukraine to resume peace talks'.
• Kremlin spox adds that any work on a peace deal between the two sides stopped 'a long time ago and hasn't restarted'.
• Regarding the potential for the Donbas and the Kherson and Zaphrizhzhia oblasts of Ukraine to be offered passports, spox Dmitri Peskov states that the people in these regions 'must decide their own future, we dont' doubt they will make the best decision'.
• The process of distributing Russian documents in occupied territories is a process known as 'passportisation'. Given that a not-insignificant proportion of the population of these regions is ethnically Russian, many may take up the offer in short time. Russia then uses the excuse of defending the safety of these newly-minted Russian citizens in order to occupy or invade territory.