Ukraine yesterday denounced the dispatch of a Russian humanitarian aid convoy to its embattled east as an act of Kremlin cynicism and said the trucks would not be allowed in.
The comments reflected suspicions in Kiev and the West that passage of the convoy onto Ukrainian soil could turn into a covert military action to help pro-Russian separatists now losing ground to Ukrainian government forces.
“The level of Russian cynicism knows no bounds,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said at a government meeting. “First they send tanks, Grad missiles and bandits who fire on Ukrainians and then they send water and salt.”
Photo: EPA
Ukrainian Minister of the Interior Arsen Avakov said on Facebook: “No Putin ‘humanitarian convoy’ will be allowed across the territory of Kharkiv region. The provocation by a cynical aggressor will not be allowed on our territory.”
Yatseniuk reiterated that any kind of humanitarian aid from the outside had to be organized under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
It was not immediately clear if this was an outright rejection of the Russian aid, which was being taken by a convoy of 280 trucks down to the border yesterday, or a refusal to allow the trucks onto Ukrainian territory.
Ukraine said on Tuesday that the cargo would have to be unloaded from the trucks at the border and transferred under the International Red Cross’ aegis onto other vehicles. The EU said the contents would have to be scrutinized.
Kiev accuses Moscow of supporting and arming the rebels, who now appear to be on the verge of defeat by government forces, with tanks, missiles and other weapons. The Kremlin denies this.
Four months of fighting in has produced a humanitarian crisis in parts of eastern Ukraine. People in the main cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, on the border with Russia, are suffering acute shortages of water, food and electricity.
Yatseniuk said the Kiev government had received US$6 million from its Western partners that would be used to alleviate conditions in distressed areas.
“We as the government of Ukraine are sending vitally needed goods to all the liberated territories,” Yatseniuk said, meaning those places which had been recaptured from the rebels.
The convoy that Russia says is carrying about 2,000 tonnes of water, baby foods and other goods left Moscow region on Tuesday for the Ukrainian border. Journalists monitoring its movement said it appeared to be at the Russian town of Voronezh yesterday, about 340km from Shebekino on the Ukrainian border.
In Donetsk, at least three people were killed in the separatist-controlled city as the government intensified its shelling campaign.
Reporters saw two bodies lying in a street yesterday morning in the city’s Petrovsky District, 11 hours after rocket fire ended.
The city government reported three deaths.
Residents said the intermittent artillery barrage lasted about two hours. City authorities said 10 residential buildings and the wing of a hospital were struck.
The UN Human Rights Office yesterday said that the death toll from the conflict has nearly doubled from 1,129 on July 26 to 2,086 as of Sunday.
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