Ukraine has said it will not allow a mammoth Russian convoy reportedly carrying aid for the war-torn east to enter its territory and that any assistance should be handed over at the border.
"We will not consider the possibility of any movement of the Russian column on the territory of Ukraine," said Valeriy Chalyy, deputy head of the presidential administration, adding that any aid would have to be loaded onto transport provided by the Red Cross and that no Russian personnel would be allowed to escort it.
Russia despatched some 300 heavy lorries carrying humanitarian aid to eastern Ukraine early on Tuesday amid NATO warnings that Russian military intervention in the civil war there is increasingly likely.
The move appears bound to raise tensions between the two neighbours, who have lurched dangerously close to war amid mutual accusations of cross-border shelling and incursions in recent weeks.
Russian media said 280 Kamaz lorries left the Alabino military base in the Moscow region in the early hours of the morning, carrying aid bound for the residents of Ukraine’s war torn Luhansk region.
A Ukrainian security spokesman said the convoy of vehicles was being managed by the Russian army and that it could not be allowed into the country.
The humanitarian crisis provoked by fighting between government troops and pro-Russian separatist militants in eastern Ukraine has reached a critical point in recent days and heightened the urgent need for intervention.
But Ukraine and the West have voiced concerns that Russia could use the aid initiative as a cover for sending troops into separatist-held territory.
"This convoy is not a certified convoy. It is not certified by the International Committee of the Red Cross," said Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council. "No military structures have the right to escort humanitarian aid convoys, especially into another state."
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