President Vladimir Putin on Sunday rejected the idea of sending people evacuated from Afghanistan to countries near Russia, saying he did not want “militants showing up here under cover of refugees”, Russian news agencies reported.

Putin criticised an idea of some western countries to relocate refugees from Afghanistan to Central Asian countries while their visas to the US and Europe are being processed.

“Does that mean that they can be sent without visas to those countries, while they themselves (the West) don’t want to take them without visas?” TASS news agency quoted Putin as saying.

“Why is there such a humiliating approach to solving the problem?” he asked.