Photo: Ukrposhta

The State Migration Service must develop a special procedure for obtaining passports for people from the occupied territories who did not previously have Ukrainian documents, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine Iryna Vereschuk said.

"Modern legislation, what was in peacetime, stipulates that if a person did not have a passport, but received a passport of the occupier, then our state does not recognize the certificate that he provides. It is difficult to identify such a person. The passport officer who puts a stamp and issues a passport must take responsibility. I understand them on a human level," Vereschuk told journalists on Thursday in Kyiv.

She complained that for a long time the authorities have not been able to find a solution that would allow a person to quickly and painlessly issue a so-called interim document, and later issue a permanent passport.

"Now the SMS has promised to develop a special procedure for such people, especially young people who want to leave and escape from the occupation, how to obtain such a transitional document, and then obtain a passport," Vereschuk said.

The Deputy Prime Minister said the difficulty is that such people who did not receive documents in Ukraine before the occupation are not on the SMS lists or the voter lists, and there are no other ways to identify them, and there are no photographs on their birth certificates.