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Huge Russian Convoy Leaves Moscow for Ukraine, Bearing Aid Russian Convoy Heads for Ukraine, With Aid and Suspicion
(about 10 hours later)
MOSCOW — An enormous Russian convoy of about 280 trucks carrying humanitarian aid has left Moscow for southeastern Ukraine, Russian television and news agencies reported Tuesday. MOSCOW — A gift horse or a Trojan horse?
The Russian aid has been an object of suspicion for Ukraine and its Western allies, which accuse the Kremlin of trying to use it as a stealth method to invade its smaller neighbor with armed forces to support the besieged separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk. That about summed up the latest, almost farcical encounter between Moscow and Kiev, as a mammoth convoy of some 260 trucks thundered across Russia on Tuesday bearing thousands of tons of humanitarian aid for the people of the besieged Ukrainian city of Luhansk.
But President Vladimir V. Putin and other senior Russian officials all insisted on Monday that it was a peaceful convoy coordinated with the International Committee of the Red Cross. The Kremlin has insisted that it is interested only in relieving the suffering of civilians and has called for the supplies to be delivered speedily under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross. But Ukraine, suspecting that the convoy is more a threat than a sincere offer of help — perhaps an attempt to infiltrate Russian forces into the country under the guise of a humanitarian mission — said on Tuesday that the trucks would be barred at the border.
Television images showed a long line of tractor-trailers stretched along a road. A Russian Orthodox priest was shown sprinkling the trucks with holy water before their departure. Many of the vehicles were draped in huge banners reading “humanitarian aid” in Russian, along with the double-headed eagle of Russia and its white, blue and red flag. The tumult seemed the latest in a series of international episodes involving President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia casting himself as a savior while the objects of his largess try to find a way to avoid taking it. Even the International Committee of the Red Cross did not seem that eager to become embroiled in the situation, with its spokesman slow to return telephone calls or saying simply that the technical details were incomplete.
NTV, a Russian state channel, quoted drivers as saying that it would take a few days for the entire column to reach the intended crossing point on the Russian-Ukrainian border, which is roughly 600 miles south of Moscow. “There is a lot of suspicion and a lot of mistrust,” said Konstantin von Eggert, a Moscow-based political analyst. “Under these circumstances, it is going to be treated like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
The convoy was carrying 2,000 tons of humanitarian aid, according to the news agency Itar-Tass. It included 400 tons of cereals, 100 tons of sugar, 62 tons of baby food, 54 tons of medical equipment and medicine, 12,000 sleeping bags and 69 generators of various sizes, the agency reported. But there is another side to the dispute, he said. If the fate of the convoy is left unresolved for long, it could provoke the armed confrontation between Russia and Ukraine that all sides have been trying to avoid since Moscow annexed Crimea in March.
Talking about the convoy on Monday, Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said he hoped that the humanitarian effort would not be blocked by Ukraine or its Western allies. Russia dispatched the convoy early Tuesday morning from just outside Moscow, saying it was working with the International Committee of the Red Cross to get emergency aid like generators, medicine and food and water to the residents of Luhansk, a separatist stronghold in eastern Ukraine that government forces have surrounded, cutting off water and electricity service. The convoy was expected to arrive at the border late Wednesday afternoon.
The Russian government began a concerted effort to get the convoy accepted on Monday, setting off alarm bells in the West despite the Kremlin’s insistence that it was coordinating its efforts with the Red Cross. While not exactly sure what the Kremlin was up to, Kiev’s Western allies consulted worriedly among themselves before issuing various warnings that the convoy deserved cautious treatment.
The secretary general of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has estimated that there is a “high probability” that Russia will intervene militarily in Ukraine, and Ukraine has announced that even more Russian troops than previously thought are massed along the border. “We must be extremely careful because this could be a cover for the Russians to install themselves near Luhansk and Donetsk,” the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, told France Info radio.
But Russian officials repeatedly insisted that the convoy was to provide relief, particularly to the besieged, separatist-held city of Luhansk, where residents have been without water and electricity for days. “I cannot judge from here what exactly is on the move from Moscow,” Steffen Seibert, the German government spokesman, said in Berlin. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President François Hollande of France had agreed by telephone that to be accepted as a genuine humanitarian mission, the convoy should have several countries participating and be supervised by the international Red Cross or some similar neutral international body, Mr. Seibert said.
Mr. Putin on Monday called the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, to tell him that the convoy was being dispatched. Mr. Barroso responded by warning against “any unilateral military actions in Ukraine, under any pretext, including humanitarian,” the European Union said in a statement. Ukrainian social media lit up with more direct concerns. The drivers would toss aside their flip-flops and prove themselves to be special forces troops once across the border, one suggested, while others suspected that the trucks were really carting ammunition.
The Ukrainian government approved the aid convoy, but only if delivered under the auspices of the Red Cross. The office of President Petro O. Poroshenko issued a statement saying that he had spoken on Monday with President Obama, who also welcomed the decision to allow humanitarian aid under Red Cross auspices into the city of Luhansk. “The Ukrainians are suspicious that it is not just clothing and tents inside those trucks, and Russia does not want to provide proof that the things being brought in are not dangerous because they consider it demeaning,” Mr. Eggert said. “It might provide another reason for a major confrontation.”
A spokesman for the Red Cross said the logistical details for the convoy’s entry into Ukraine had yet to be worked out. The Red Cross stressed that it never accepted armed escorts. Part of the problem is of Mr. Putin’s own making. In annexing Crimea, he established himself as the protector of Russian-speaking populations wherever they might be, and his nationalist supporters expect him to deliver. The aid convoy is a means to fulfill that pledge.
“A general agreement exists but not a detailed plan,” said Andre Loersch, the spokesman, speaking by telephone from Kiev. The general agreement calls for the Russian Federation to hand over humanitarian aid, which will then be distributed by the Red Cross. Mr. Poroshenko has consulted twice by telephone in recent days with Peter Maurer, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, on the agreement, he said. But for Ukrainians, Russia is a party to the armed conflict, covertly supplying men and weapons even if Moscow denies the charge. Should the Kremlin sincerely want to provide humanitarian relief, Kiev reasons, it should just reign in its proxies.
In Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, the former President Leonid Kuchma, who has served as a mediator between the government and the rebels, said the aid would be distributed to hospitals, kindergartens, orphanages and other people in need. “The militants must not receive one gram,” he was quoted as saying by the news agency Interfax. In Geneva, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross said that Russian officials had provided a manifest of the supplies, but that the contents still have to be verified and discussions were continuing about the delivery.
The Russian aid convoy will cross into Ukraine near Kharkiv, he said, and then drive to Luhansk. Along with the Red Cross, representatives of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which has also been part of the mediation effort, will accompany the convoy to Luhansk, Mr. Kuchma said. “It’s a work in progress at the moment; we are still clarifying the details,” said Ewan Watson, the spokesman. “There are pieces of the puzzle that remain missing.”
The convoy evoked suspicion and anger from some Ukrainian politicians on Tuesday. At a morning session of Parliament, called the Rada, Oleh Lyashko, a nationalist politician who has helped form several paramilitary battalions, called for Ukraine to turn back the convoy and seal the border. For their part, Russian officials issued a series of wounded statements that the aid shipment was not being accepted at face value.
Sergey V. Lavrov, the foreign minister, told a news conference that Russia had accepted all of Kiev’s conditions and had spelled them out: the route, the choice of a border crossing near Kharkiv, the use of Ukrainian license plates once across the border, and that the trucks carry not only international monitors, but representatives of the Ukrainian government as well.
Mr. Lavrov said that the delivery plan had been agreed to on Monday, with the logistics left to the Red Cross. He said he expected that the Ukrainian government would guarantee the column’s security, and said the separatist militias would do the same.
“We have already signaled to them,” said Mr. Lavrov, in a rare public display of Moscow’s influence. “I am certain there will be no disruptions on their part. They are on the territory whose residents need humanitarian aid.”
Later, the Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying it was “bewildered” by pronouncements coming from Kiev that negotiations about the convoy route and the logistics remained unresolved.
The convoy, which Russian news reports said stretched for nearly two miles, was carrying about 2,000 metric tons of supplies including 400 tons of cereals, 100 tons of sugar, 62 tons of baby food, 54 tons of medical supplies, 12,300 sleeping bags and 69 generators of various sizes, the Foreign Ministry said.
Russian officials acknowledged the suspicions, but said that should not delay the aid.
“We have agreed to all the details,” Dmitri S. Peskov, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, said in a brief interview. “We don’t care about the suspicions. What we care about is the tremendously grave humanitarian situation there.” He added that those with suspicions should concentrate instead on the problems facing civilians in Luhansk.
City officials issued a statement on Tuesday saying that Luhansk had been completely without power since Aug. 3, that it had no water nor sewage services and that the mobile telephone network was not functioning. Of the prewar population of 420,000, some 250,000 people remained, the statement said.
In Kiev, government officials voiced various opinions about the aid, ranging from barring it completely to transferring it to Ukrainian trucks at the Shebekino-Pletenivka border crossing near Kharkiv.
At a news conference, Andriy Lysenko, the Ukranian military spokesman, played a secretly recorded video that he said showed the aid was linked to the Russian military. Trucks resembling those shown on Russia’s state-run television as part of the convoy were lined up on what Mr. Lysenko called a military base. There was a glimpse of soldiers in uniform lined up in front of some trucks.
Valeriy Chaly, the deputy presidential chief of staff, said the Russian convoy would not be allowed to cross. Instead, the cargo would be unloaded, carted across the border, inspected by customs and then delivered using different trucks, he said.
Many of the vehicles were draped in huge banners reading “humanitarian aid” in Russian, along with the double-headed eagle of Russia and its white, blue and red flag.
“We will not allow either the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry or any other Russian law enforcement ministry to accompany the humanitarian cargo,” Mr. Chaly said on Hromadske TV, calling the humanitarian mission a Ukrainian initiative with the international Red Cross in charge of delivery. Any attempt to move the convoy into Ukraine without authorization would be viewed as an attack, he said.
Ukrainian officials have repeatedly said that Russia has massed 45,000 troops near the border, and that they are poised to attack. NATO’s secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, expressed similar fears on Monday, saying there was a “high probability” of a Russian invasion.
Mr. Chaly also said outright that Ukraine had accepted the aid due to pressure from its Western allies.
In initially saying that Ukraine would accept the aid, the office of President Petro O. Poroshenko announced that President Obama had supported the move and offered American aid as well. Later, the Ukrainian president’s office amended the statement to note that the United States had endorsed the plan but not offered aid.
Not everyone agreed to acceptance.
At a morning session of Parliament, Oleh Lyashko, a nationalist politician who has helped form several paramilitary battalions, called for Ukraine to turn back the convoy and seal the border.
“How can you take humanitarian aid from a country that destroys our country?” Mr. Lyashko said. “Stop this nonsense.”“How can you take humanitarian aid from a country that destroys our country?” Mr. Lyashko said. “Stop this nonsense.”
Parliament was also due to vote on imposing economic and legal sanctions against 172 Russian, Ukrainian and other foreign nationals.
Prime Minister Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk proposed the sanctions on Friday, saying they were directed at those who have been “financing terrorism, supporting the annexation of Crimea and encroached on the territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
There has been speculation for months over whether Russia wants to intervene directly in the conflict next door. Most analysts concluded that it did not, figuring that the costs of what would amount to an occupation would be too high in soldiers’ lives and in financial terms, especially in the face of sweeping Western sanctions.
But as the area controlled by the separatists has gradually shrunk to the two cities of Luhansk and Donetsk, the question has focused on what Mr. Putin will do to ensure continued influence over events in Ukraine. Kiev and the West accuse Moscow of sending men and weapons to the area, a charge the Kremlin denies.
There is little doubt that Russia possesses the capacity to carry out an invasion of southeastern Ukraine. NATO has said Russia deployed about 20,000 troops along the border. On Monday, however, a Ukrainian military spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, said the numbers had risen alarmingly, to around 45,000 troops, supported by 160 tanks, 1,360 armored vehicles, 390 artillery systems, 150 truck-mounted ground-to-ground rocket launchers, 192 fighter jets and 137 helicopters. Those figures could not be independently verified.
The headquarters for Ukraine’s “antiterrorism operation,” as the military campaign in the east is officially known, said Tuesday that military raids had destroyed three rebel checkpoints. Shelling continued in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions late Monday evening and early Tuesday morning.
In Donetsk, the City Council said shelling had damaged the electricity infrastructure, leaving 206 substations without power.