DHAKA: The Russian foreign ministry said on Saturday sanctions imposed by the European Union on 12 Russians and Ukrainians over Crimea were ‘divorced from reality’.

‘It’s a pity that the European Council made a decision that is divorced from reality,’ the ministry’s spokesman Alexander said in a statement on the ministry’s website.

In a separate statement, the ministry said Moscow hoped the decision to send to Ukraine a monitoring mission of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe would help resolve what it called an ‘internal Ukrainian crisis’, reports The Jerusalem Post.

BDST: 1745 HRS, MAR 22, 2014