Russia announced on Thursday that it had given out Russian passports to more than 80,000 residents of four regions of Ukraine that it says it has “annexed” to its territory, a decision not recognized by the international community, AFP reported.

“Since the joining of four regions to the Russian Federation in accordance with the law, more than 80,000 people have received passports of citizens of the Russian Federation,” local news agencies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia quote.

In September, Russia held “referendums”, recognized by Western countries as falsification, regarding the annexation of the territories controlled by it in Ukraine in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions (east), as well as in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson (south).

These “annexations”, ratified by Moscow in early October, are strongly condemned by the international community and are not recognized. Since their announcement, Russian forces have also yielded to the Ukrainian military, withdrawing, for example, from the regional capital of Kherson.

Even before the offensive on Ukraine began in February, Moscow had already distributed hundreds of thousands of Russian passports to areas controlled by its proxies in eastern Ukraine.

After the invasion began, the Kremlin made it even easier for Ukrainians to obtain Russian citizenship.

Experts believe that Russia is using this strategy to strengthen its claims on the territory of Ukraine, which it claims is populated by recently naturalized Russian citizens.