ROSTOV-ON-DON, September 13 (RIA Novosti) - A spokesman for Russia's Southern Customs Directorate told RIA Novosti Saturday that all trucks had been cleared to cross back into Russia after bringing essentials to stricken Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine.
"At 20:30 Moscow time [18:30 GMT], the last truck left the Donetsk-Izvarino checkpoint for Russia," Farukshin confirmed.
On Friday evening, a convoy of 220 vehicles entered Ukraine through the Donetsk Border Crossing Point and had been underway throughout the night. The white-colored trucks carrying some 1,800 tons of food, medicine, water purification equipment and power generators were destined for Luhansk, which had been on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe for weeks.
Valery Potapov, the first deputy prime minister of the self-proclaimed Luhansk region, said earlier in the day that the second batch of humanitarian help had come in "just in time," as the region's stocks of food were running dangerously low.
"We had some canned meat left, but we had already tapped into the dead storage for grain and sugar," he confessed.
The first convoy of 280 trucks, carrying Russian humanitarian aid, was sent to eastern Ukraine in late August and entered the country through a checkpoint, controlled by independence forces after spending more than a week waiting at the border.
Potapov told journalists on Saturday the replenished stocks were expected to last them about 20 days.
