The first train with refugees from east Ukraine's Donbas region arrived in Russia's Voronezh region, TASS reported on Sunday.

Voronezh authorities previously said about 500 people will be on board the train, but it's not immediately clear how many actually got on. 

Russia's First Deputy Emergencies Minister Alexander Chupriyan said on Sunday that more than 40,000 refugees from Donbas have already arrived in Russia and are placed in temporary accommodation in Rostov region.

He also said that three batches of a total of round 2,000 refugees were sent by train to nearby Voronezh and Kursk regions over the past 24 hours.

About 950,000 residents of Donbas have applied for Russian citizenship and 770,000 have already received the status, Viktor Vodolatsky, State Duma deputy from the Rostov region, told TASS on Sunday.