LUHANSK, August 22 (RIA Novosti) – The first group of Russia’s aid convoy trucks that crossed into Ukraine earlier on Friday have rolled into the stricken city of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, the city authority said.
“They have begun to unload humanitarian cargo which will then be distributed among the population,” a source in the Luhansk city administration said.
The source did not rule out that several trucks may have headed for the Donetsk republic to the west of Luhansk, where a worsening humanitarian crisis has trapped thousands without access to food, running fresh water or electricity.
As of now, around 130 trucks have reportedly arrived in the city, numerous media reports suggest.
The Luhansk administration said it had set up a “special commission” that will pick “priority groups” to distribute food and water packages among the residents of the besieged Ukrainian city, which in 2013 was home to more than 425,000.
A convoy of 280 trucks carrying food, medicine and other essentials for people in eastern Ukraine set out from near Moscow on August 12. It had been stranded at the border with Ukraine for more than a week.
Earlier on Friday, several dozens of Russian trucks carrying humanitarian aid crossed the border into Ukraine allegedly without clearance by Ukrainian customs officials or a Red Cross escort. Militia in Luhansk already confirmed the arrival of the first trucks.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has accused Kiev of dragging its feet on customs checks in an attempt to quell the uprising by starving people in the restive provinces until “there is no one left to be helped.”
