Donetsk, Aug 14 – DAN. Over 105 thousand DPR residents have already received Republican passports, the immigration service head of the Interior Ministry Vladimir Krasnoscheka told DAN.

"Since the beginning of passports issuing, as of today's morning, migration service has issued 105,100 Republican passports. The number of people willing to obtain DPR IDS is constantly growing, every day were receive a large number of requests," he said.

Since March, 2016 the service received 115,360 such requests, meaning over 10,000 people are still awaiting their passports, he said.

DPR Head Alexander Zakharchenko said earlier that the Republican migration service would hire more staff to reduce the number of people waiting for their DPR passports to be issued.

DPR began issuing its passports on March 16, 2016. The first 20 DPR residents received IDs from Zakharcheno. The authorities said at the time that priority was given to those who turned 16, 25 and 45 years old and to those who lost Ukrainian passports. Large-scale issuance of DPR passports was announced later, on June 21.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 19, 2017 signed a decree validating identification documents issued by the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics.

The decree was signed "to protect human rights and freedoms in accordance with the widely recognized principles of international humanitarian law" and to remain in force "for the period until the political settlement of the situation is achieved" on the basis of the Minsk Agreements. *ot