"It is necessary to expand the opportunities presented by this program to our compatriots who arrive in the Far East from foreign countries," Vladimir Putin said as he opened the session of the State Council Presidium in Vladivostok on Wednesday.

"Compatriots living abroad" is an expression used by the Russian mass media to describe people of Russian culture and – usually – ethnicity, many of whom stayed in the ex-Soviet republics after the USSR collapsed in 1992. Russian law allows for a simplified naturalization and some other benefits for this group of people, which includes descendants of those born within the present-day borders of Russia.