REUTERS

Member of the European Parliament Rebecca Harms has called on the European Union to respond to Russian President Vladimir Putin's plan to ease the process of granting Russian citizenship to all Ukrainians, not only those in war-torn parts of eastern Ukraine.

"Hey EU! After some critical words on passportization for Donbas (better than nothing) now you see Putin continues his escalation," she wrote on Twitter, appealing to High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn, and President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker.

"Will Heiko Maas [Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs of Germany] bring it up in Security Council? Or again Ukrainians have to take the initiative?" she added, referring to the recent meeting of the UN Security Council, which was convened at Ukraine's initiative in connection with Russian "passportization" of Ukrainian Donbas.

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In particular, Harms asks Germany, which currently chairs the UN Security Council, to convene another meeting.

As UNIAN reported earlier, on April 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the simplified procedure for issuing Russian passports to residents of the temporarily occupied areas in Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine.

Later, Putin claimed that Moscow was considering a plan to ease the process of granting Russian citizenship to all Ukrainians, not only those living in the self-proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republic ("DPR") and Luhansk People's Republic ("LPR").

Ukrainian diplomats are now actively working together with their international partners on the implementation of tougher sanctions against Russia because of Putin's move on passports in Donbas.