MOSCOW, November 5 (RIA Novosti) — Leaders of Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics should be denied access to the European Union countries, Christoph Heusgen, top foreign policy adviser to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said at a conference on foreign policy in Berlin Wednesday.
"These are people whom I would say should be put on the list of visa bans," Heusgen said, as International Business Times reported.
Germany's Minister of Foreign Affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier said earlier that elections in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic disregard Minsk agreement signed by the conflicting sides on September 5.
Following a February coup in Kiev, Donetsk and Luhansk residents established people's republics that later declared independence. The self-proclaimed republics held elections for the heads of local governments and representatives of legislative bodies on Sunday. Ukraine's central authorities have refused to recognize the elections.
The European Union and the United States called the vote illegitimate and running counter to the Minsk agreements.
Russia, on the contrary, recognized the vote and emphasized that the stance of the Western countries would disrupt the peace process.
