YEREVAN, MAY 18, ARMENPRESS. Due to the current Russia-Ukraine conflict, the process of immigration from these countries to Armenia has been activated, Head of the Strategy Development Department at the Office of High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs of Armenia Hovhannes Aleksanyan said during a press conference in Armenpress.

He said that many ethnic Armenians are interested in acquiring Armenian citizenship, getting different residency statuses.

“According to the data of the first quarter, there have been around 6000 border crossings into Armenia with Ukrainian documents, in other words, they entered our country with Ukrainian documents. Most of them are Armenians. Due to the escalation of the situation, the government of Armenia prepared brief information about the checkpoints of crossing by the Western border into the EU states – Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, which helped many of our compatriots to leave Ukraine. In addition, we gathered the Armenian communities in these 4 EU states, who managed to create stop stations for our compatriots for organizing the return to the homeland. The Armenian communities provided major support in accommodating the people, solving the documentation issues, assisting financially, sending them off, for which we are grateful”, Hovhannes Aleksanyan said.

Armenia provided some support to those ethnic Armenians who lacked financial means of leaving Ukraine, tickets were purchased for their return to homeland. Aleksanyan said that there was a moment when the Armenian communities in the EU states, especially that in Poland was very overloaded and the capacities were not so big. The Office of the High Commissioner sent a letter to the government requesting to rise the funding of the embassies in order to continue providing the support to the citizens.

“Yes, a special flight was not organized, but there is support in other format, and the families, who apply to the embassy, are able to use that opportunity. I would like to state that the German government finances the return program. “Those who are citizens of Armenia and have temporarily resided in Germany after leaving Ukraine, could apply to the German government for getting a financial aid”, Hovhannes Aleksanyan said.

The next stage of the support provided to Armenians who left Ukraine is already being done in Armenia. The Office of High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs is currently implementing a 4-component project with the Armenian Missionary Association of America (AMAA). The first component is subsidizing the rent of the apartment up to 70,000 drams. The second component is educational as there are families from Ukraine whose children study in Armenian universities. If they submit the respective documents, they could get a subsidy for the tuition fee. The third component relates to healthcare issues, and the 4^th one is the one-time assistance. Nearly 80 families from Ukraine, who have settled in Armenia, have already applied to the Office for using the different components of this project.

The Armenian community of Ukraine is the 4^th largest in the world, with a population of about 400,000 ethnic Armenians. Hovhannes Aleksanyan said that thousands of ethnic Armenians in Ukraine have no plans to leave the country as they have conscription-age sons, husbands, property, etc.