BRUSSELS, November 17 (Sputnik) — The foreign affairs ministers of the European Union ordered EU bodies to add more independence supporters from eastern Ukraine to the block's sanctions list by the end of November, the Foreign Affairs Council said in a press release Monday.
"Having assessed the situation on the ground, the Council calls on the EEAS [European External Action Service] and the Commission to present a proposal for decision by the end of this month on additional listing targeting separatists," said the Council in its conclusions on Ukraine, published on its official website.
According to the document, the Foreign Affairs Council "will continue to closely follow the situation on the ground and will act accordingly."
The Council has referred to the elections held in Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR) on November 2 as a "breach of the letter and spirit of the Minsk protocol" and called on Russia "to assume its responsibility in its regard."
Following a February coup in Kiev, residents of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine established so-called people's republics that later declared independence. The crisis in Ukraine escalated in mid-April, when Kiev authorities launched a military operation against independence supporters in Donbas.
After a meeting of the trilateral contact group on Ukraine on September 5, which resulted in the establishment of a ceasefire, Ukraine adopted a law granting special statuses to parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The law stipulated that local elections were to take place in these regions on December 7. However, the self-proclaimed republics held their independent elections for regional leaders and legislative bodies on November 2.
The Donbas elections were deemed illegitimate by Ukraine's central authorities and the West. Russia said it respected the elections in DPR and LPR, although it did not officially recognize them.
