UKRAINE | Gov’t to block Russian aid trucks

Ukrainian officials said yesterday they’d refuse entry to a truck convoy that Russia says is loaded with humanitarian assistance for rebel-held eastern areas, while pledging to send their own aid to the embattled region.
Ukraine and Russia were locked in a stalemate as the column of about 280 Moscow-sent trucks headed for the border.
Russia’s government said the vehicles loaded with 2,000 metric tons of donated food, medicine and water left the Russian capital Tuesday and would proceed into Ukraine under the auspices of the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross. Viktor Shcherbanyuk, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Red Cross in Kiev, said yesterday there was no agreement for the convoy’s entry either with his organization or with the ICRC.
“The only humanitarian aid Ukraine can accept must be within international law and can only come from the Red Cross,” Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told a news conference yesterday in Kiev. “The Ukrainian government is forming a convoy to bring the most-needed items to the relevant territories.”
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on his Facebook page the convoy wouldn’t be allowed into Ukraine and called the Russian move “provocations of a cynical aggressor.”
Fighting continued in the eastern regions of Ukraine.
Twelve militants belonging to Ukraine’s nationalist Pravyi Sektor group were killed when their bus was shelled by pro-Russia rebels near the eastern city of Donetsk, spokesman Artem Skoropadsky told 112 TV. Five people in Donetsk were injured by heavy weapons fire Tuesday night, the city council said on its website.
The convoy was on its way to the Russian city of Belgorod about 70 kilometers from the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, RIA Novosti said yesterday.
Ukraine expressed fears the convoy is carrying military equipment to aid the pro-Russian separatists.Bloomberg

Daria Marchak and Kateryna Choursina