Germany stamps 'passports' issued by Russia to Donbas residents - Bild

24.09.2019 18:33

Ukrinform

Germany affixes visas into "passports" issued by Russia to residents of the temporarily occupied areas of Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions, without making a distinction between Russian passports and these "documents," German tabloid newspaper Bild has reported.

According to the report, this is stated in a response to a request from MP Renata Alt from Germany's Free Democratic Party (FDP), who is also the rapporteur of the FDP's parliamentary group for Ukraine and Russia.

"The German government makes no distinction between regular Russian passports and those that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has been distributing in eastern Ukraine since April," the article reads.

This is despite the fact that top-ranking German officials have strongly criticized Putin's decree, saying that it violates the sovereignty of Ukraine and contradicts the objectives of the Minsk agreements.

"At the same time, it is apparently easily possible to affix a visa into a Russian passport that Putin has been issuing in eastern Ukraine!" Alt told Bild.

In her opinion, "the federal government is undermining all efforts to de-escalate the situation and achieve peace in Ukraine."

According to the article, almost 100,000 visas have been issued by the German authorities to holders of Russian passports since April. However, it is unclear how many visas were affixed into Russian passports issued to residents of occupied Donbas.