Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia imposed travel bans on President Alexander Lukashenko and 29 other Belarusian officials Monday, jumping into action to impose sanctions before the rest of the European Union.

The three Baltic states have led calls for the West to take firmer action against Lukashenko, who is accused by opponents and the West of rigging an election to prolong his 26-year rule.

The sanctions are aimed at officials the three Baltic states accuse of vote-rigging and playing a role in violence against protesters since the Aug. 9 election. Lukashenko's inclusion in the lists sends a message to other European countries that have been reluctant to back measures against him personally.

"We said that we need peaceful dialogue and agreement between the regime and society, but we see that the regime is not ready for that," Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said. "We see that we need to move forward and to show an example to other countries."

The EU has been working on its own list of individuals in Belarus to target with similar sanctions, but Western countries have mostly been cautious, wary of provoking intervention from Russia. The three small Baltic states are in the EU, and Lithuania and Latvia border Belarus. Lithuania has been hosting opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled there after the election her supporters say she won.

Tsikhanouskaya will speak to the U.N. Security Council on Friday at Estonia's invitation, her spokesman said.

Meanwhile, Lukashenko discussed plans for a referendum on constitutional reforms on Monday. He has twice before held such referendums, pushing through changes that strengthened the role of the president.

On Monday, he acknowledged the country's "somewhat authoritarian system."

Russia has backed constitutional reforms in neighbor and close ally Belarus after President Vladimir Putin in July pushed through reforms allowing him to serve more terms. Lukashenko's proposals focused on court reforms and rejected calls by the opposition to go back to the country's 1994 constitution that was later modified to give the president more powers.

The Belarusian leader has sought to downplay the protest movement and depict himself as maintaining control and order. But he has appeared increasingly isolated and paranoid, booed by the blue-collar workers he viewed as his natural supporters and wearing a bulletproof vest to helicopter into his official residence.

Meeting the chairman of the Supreme Court, Lukashenko said that experts were discussing changes, including more independent courts, while he said this was not needed.

"I'm ready to argue with anyone that the most independent court is in Belarus. No one should laugh," he said.

He said, however, the system needed to work "without being tied to a personality, including Lukashenko." According to him, members of the public would be able to "give their opinion: what they like, what they don't," while insisting that "those who yell about being for changes" were a minority.

Lukashenko, elected democratically in 1994, held a referendum on changes including constitutional reforms in 1996. These included giving the president greater powers on appointing judges including the chair of the Constitutional Court. A controversial constitutional referendum was held in 2004, allowing the president to serve three terms instead of two as before. Lukashenko said that going back to the 1994 Constitution as the opposition wants would not move the country forward.

Seeking to stem the protests, Belarusian prosecutors have opened a criminal probe against the opposition Coordination Council, accusing its members of undermining the country’s security. Last week, Belarusian courts handed 10-day jail sentences to two council members and summoned several others for questioning, including Svetlana Alexievich, who won the 2015 Nobel Prize in literature.

Following a fierce dispersal of peaceful demonstrators in the days after the vote in which nearly 7,000 people were detained, hundreds were injured by police rubber bullets, stun grenades and beatings and at least three protesters died, police stopped interfering with the demonstrations for the next two weeks, but last week again cranked up the pressure on demonstrators and began breaking up rallies.

The Belarusian government also cracked down hard on the news media, deporting some foreign journalists from the country and revoking the accreditation of many Belarusian journalists. Two Moscow-based Associated Press (AP) journalists who were covering the recent protests in Belarus were deported to Russia on Saturday.

In addition, the AP’s Belarusian journalists were told by the government that their press credentials had been revoked. The Belarusian Association of Journalists said over the weekend that accreditation rights were also taken away from 17 Belarusian working for several other media, including Germany’s ARD television, the BBC, Reuters, AFP, and U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said five of its journalists lost their accreditation.

The U.S. and EU officials have strongly condemned the media crackdown.

The detention of hundreds of demonstrators did not deter the opposition from mounting another massive rally on Sunday, which saw an estimated 100,000 protesters flood the streets of the Belarusian capital amid a heavy police presence.