Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda proposed inviting opposition leader Alyaksander Milinkevich to the EU summit. As his proposal did not succeed he initiated invitation of Milinkevich to the European People's Party meeting that will take place prior the EU summit. According to the Czech News Agency, Jan Rybar, reporter of the Czech daily Mlada fronta Dnes, was attacked and beaten up at the opposition demonstration in Minsk. He said in his opinion he had been beaten up by agents of the Belarusian secret police KGB, but has no direct piece of evidence to prove it. On 23 March, American diplomats evacuated Vyacheslav Sivchik, one of the organizers of the opposition meeting, from Oktyabrskaya Square. On 24 March, EU leaders agreed at a summit to impose sanctions on Belarus leaders, including a possible travel ban on Lukashenko, after his victory in a disputed presidential election on Sunday. Officials said Lukashenko had won more than 80% of the vote. A statement from the 25 leaders called the country "a sad exception ... on a continent of open and democratic societies" and said the election had violated democratic norms. "The European council has decided to take restrictive measures against those responsible for the violations of international electoral standards, including President Lukashenko," the Austrian foreign minister, Ursula Plassnik, said after the EU summit. She gave no details, but EU officials said measures being considered included visa bans on those accused of allegedly rigging the poll and possible asset freezes, but not economic sanctions against the former Soviet republic. Lukashenko was banned from entering the 25 nations of the EU - including Belarus' neighbours, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania - and from the US. The EU Council has passed a list of Belarusian officials targeted by sanctions. Russia Russia considered the election results acceptable; the Russian Foreign Ministry declared the election fair, and Russian president Vladimir Putin called Lukashenko to congratulate him on his victory. The Russian Foreign Ministry condemned alleged OSCE bias, saying "The biased verdict of the OSCE, Europe's main election monitoring organization, on the presidential election in Belarus highlights the need to improve the process of observing polls, an official spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. "We believe that the biased nature of the verdict of the monitoring mission has again confirmed the importance of beginning, at last, focused work to correct shortcomings in the election monitoring practice," Mikhail Kamynin said referring