AFP, Geneva

The United Nations yesterday voiced deep concern over Moscow’s “mass conferral” of Russian passports in Ukrainian territory it controls and denying essential services to people who refuse them.

The UN human rights office, OHCHR, said residents who do not take up Russian citizenship were being denied access to essential public services and were at greater risk of arbitrary detention.

“One and a half years after the Russian Federation’s full-scale armed attack on Ukraine, we continue to bear witness to blatant and unabated violations of human rights,” said UN deputy human rights chief Nada Al-Nashif.