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EU sanctions will not influence integration between Belarus and Russia, Putin says

The European Union's sanctions against Belarus will not influence the integration process between Moscow and Minsk, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is running for his third presidential term, said on Wednesday while meeting with campaign aides.

He expressed hope that relations between the European Union and Belarus would get back to normal sooner or later.

Mr. Putin said that in his opinion, the sanctions were all about bilateral political relations between the EU and Belarus and not an attack on the Customs Union of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus or on their Common Economic Zone.

On Monday, the Council of the European Union extended its list of Belarusians subject to entry bans and asset freezes to include 21 more names.

The following day, the Belarusian foreign ministry "recommended" that the head of the EU delegation to Belarus and the ambassador of Poland to Belarus return to their capitals for consultations and simultaneously recalled the country's permanent representative in Brussels and ambassador in Warsaw.

On Tuesday evening, Catherine Ashton, the European Union's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, called a meeting of Member States Ambassadors and announced afterward that a decision had been made to withdraw all the ambassadors of EU member states in Minsk for consultations "in expression of solidarity and unity."