
A woman at a customs post in the liberated village of Melovoe, Luhansk People's Republic, on the border with Russia. Archival photoROSTOV-ON-DON, July 20 More than 21,000 residents of the DPR, LPR and Ukraine crossed checkpoints at the border in the Rostov region over the past day, the Border Department of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation for the region reports. «Over the past day over 21,000 citizens crossed the border to enter Russia through checkpoints located in the Rostov region,» the message says. 4 billion rubles to refugees from Donbass and UkraineRussia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24. President Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years.» According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, as of March 25, the Armed Forces completed the main tasks of the first stage — they significantly reduced the combat potential of Ukraine. The main goal in the Russian military department was called the liberation of Donbass. In particular, Volnovakha, a strategically important regional center south of Donetsk, Mariupol, the largest city on the coast of the Sea of Azov, and Svyatogorsk, which houses a large Orthodox monastery with the status of a lavra, were liberated in the DPR. On July 3, with the capture of Lisichansk and the surrounding settlements, the entire territory of the LPR was liberated.

