Updated 04:28 p.m. Moscow Time
MOSCOW, September 11 (RIA Novosti) - No breakthrough has been achieved in talks between Moscow and Kiev on the delivery of a second batch of humanitarian aid from Russia to crisis-hit eastern Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Thursday.
“Unfortunately, there has been no breakthrough allowing the [Russian] convoy to start moving in the next few days,” spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said at a news briefing in Moscow.
“We hope that the delivery will be carried out with participation of Ukraine’s border guards and customs officers as well as officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross [ICRC], and that the ICRC take an active part in [aid] distribution at local level, ” Lukashevich said.
The spokesman stressed that the details of the humanitarian operation are being coordinated and, considering the current volatile situation in eastern Ukraine, the process is rather difficult.
“We hope, however, that the coordination would not be dragged out,” Lukashevich said.
Earlier in the day, Russian Deputy Emergencies Minister Vladimir Stepanov said that the second convoy loaded with humanitarian cargo for southeastern Ukraine had been stationed in the southern Russian city of Donetsk.
The first convoy of 280 trucks carrying Russian humanitarian aid was sent to eastern Ukraine in August and entered the country’s territory through a checkpoint controlled by independence forces after more than a week waiting at the border.
Last week, the participants of the Minsk talks on the Ukrainian crisis settlement agreed to organize two more humanitarian convoys from Russia to eastern Ukraine. According to the Russian Ambassador to Ukraine, Mikhail Zurabov, the first batch will be sent by road and the second one by rail.
On September 4, Russian Deputy Emergency Situations Minister Vladimir Artamonov said that almost 2,000 tons of humanitarian aid are ready to be sent with the second humanitarian convoy to southeastern Ukraine.
