Kiev won’t allow Russian convoy into Ukraine
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UKRAINE has denounced Russia’s dispatch of a humanitarian aid convoy now advancing towards the border as an act of unbounded cynicism serving pro-Russian separatists, and the UN says the death toll in fighting had doubled in the last two weeks to over 2,000.
Kiev said yesterday the trucks would not be allowed to pass.
“First they send tanks, Grad missiles and bandits who fire on Ukrainians and then they send water and salt,” Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said at a government meeting yesterday.
The convoy of 280 heavy trucks rumbled out of Moscow region on Tuesday and travelled some 500 kilometers to the southwestern Russian town of Voronezh. There it stopped at an air base behind high fences.
Russia says the convoy is carrying about 2,000 tons of water, baby foods and other goods.
“The journey isn’t short of course,” one lorry driver interviewed on Russian Rossiya-24 television said. “How can I put it? It’s pretty difficult. But how could we not help our Slavic brothers? We are all for it.”
There was no discussion on Russian television of any military intervention and Moscow has insisted throughout that it has enlisted Ukrainian cooperation for the operation.
The last few weeks has seen government successes against rebels who have abandoned a string of towns under heavy fire. Kiev says rebel leaders are receiving arms from Russia, something Moscow denies.
UN human rights spokeswoman Cecile Pouilly said the estimated death toll had risen to 2,086 as of August 10 from 1,129 on July 26. The figures included Ukrainian soldiers, rebel groups and civilians, but were “very conservative estimates.”
Russian television presented a picture of fierce battles around the rebel stronghold of Donetsk, accusing the Ukrainian military of indiscriminate shelling of rocketing of civilian buildings. Residents interviewed said they were being bombed everyday and hiding in cellars.
The approach of the convoy may present Kiev with a dilemma. Ukraine fears it could become the focus of tension and conflict once on its soil and provide pretext for a Russian armed incursion. At the same time it does not want to seem to be blocking aid and providing the same moral arguments to Moscow.
“The level of Russian cynicism knows no bounds,” said Prime Minister Yatseniuk.
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on his Facebook page: “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 said 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 Kiev was rejecting outright the Russian aid or simply refusing to allow the Russian trucks onto Ukrainian territory.
Ukraine said on Tuesday that the cargo would have to be unloaded from Russian trucks at the border and transferred under international Red Cross aegis onto other vehicles. The European Union said the contents would have to be scrutinized.
“We are currently waiting for an exact description of the goods which are there. This is a key moment to work out the options for delivery and distribution of aid. The final route is not known,” a Ukrainian Red Cross spokesman said in Kiev.
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