Aid rigs still outside Ukraine

Security worries keep Russian convoy parked at border

A driver stands Saturday in front of trucks that are part of an aid convoy parked near the Ukrainian border.
A driver stands Saturday in front of trucks that are part of an aid convoy parked near the Ukrainian border.

KAMENSK-SHAKHTINSKY, Russia -- Hundreds of trucks in a Russian aid convoy waited Saturday near the Ukrainian border as complicated procedures dragged on for allowing them into eastern Ukraine to help civilians suffering in fighting between Ukrainian forces and separatists.

The main holdup was a lack of security guarantees from all sides in the conflict, said the International Committee of the Red Cross, which would have responsibility for distributing the aid.

Ukrainian officials are concerned that the mission, including about 200 trucks, could be a guise for Russia to send in equipment for the rebels, whom Kiev and Western countries claim are backed by Moscow. But Russia and Ukraine reached an agreement under which the trucks could enter with Red Cross accompaniment if Ukrainian border guards and customs agents approve the cargo.

Pascal Cuttat, head of the International Red Cross delegation for Russia, said agreement on how the cargo would be inspected and cleared was reached Saturday during several hours of talks between Russian and Ukrainian customs and border service officials.

"The challenge is we absolutely need security guarantees from all parties concerned before we can start moving," Cuttat told reporters, adding that it was unclear how long this could take. He said they were also waiting for a reply from the Ukrainian government to a formal request for the cargo to be processed.

The Ukrainian officials met with their Russian counterparts in the Russian border town of Donetsk, some 125 miles east of the Ukrainian city with the same name. Cuttat said the cargo inspection would take place there. The trucks have been parked since Thursday in the town of Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, 17 miles from the border.

According to the White House, Vice President Joe Biden spoke Saturday with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, hearing that safe passage had not been secured from the separatists for the delivery of Russian aid. The two agreed that Russia's continued provision of advanced weapons to the separatists was inconsistent with any desire to improve the humanitarian situation in eastern Ukraine, it said.

Fighting continued in eastern Ukraine, where government troops have been steadily taking back rebel-held territory. Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine's national security council, said in Kiev that three servicemen had been killed in the past day.

Lysenko reiterated the claim made a day earlier by Poroshenko that Ukrainian forces had destroyed most of a column of Russian military vehicles that had entered eastern Ukraine on Thursday evening.

Russia sharply denied that any such incursion had taken place, and the White House said it was looking into what it called unconfirmed reports that Russian military vehicles were destroyed. Nonetheless, the reports spooked global markets and overshadowed optimism about the aid convoy.

Fighting has escalated since the insurgency arose in April, and conditions for countless civilians are deteriorating.

The city of Luhansk is encircled by Ukrainian forces and is reportedly suffering from electrical blackouts and shortages of food and medicine.

Donetsk, the largest rebel-held city, is also suffering through fighting including frequent shelling. Four people were killed in shelling Saturday afternoon, the mayor's office said in a statement.

Lysenko said Ukrainian forces are not using artillery or airstrikes against either Luhansk or Donetsk. Ukrainians have blamed rebels for the shelling, while the insurgents say Ukrainians are firing on civilian targets.

While the Russian aid convoy remained stalled near the border, Ukraine has mounted a smaller but substantial aid mission to parts of the east recently freed from rebel control.

Trucks sent from the eastern city of Kharkiv were unloaded Friday at warehouses in the town of Starobilsk, where the goods were to be sorted and transported by the Red Cross. Starobilsk is 62 miles north of Luhansk.

Other Ukrainian aid was taken to the town of Lysychansk, which was retaken by Ukrainian forces late last month but has seen sporadic clashes until early last week.

The foreign ministers of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany are expected to meet today in Berlin to discuss the crisis.

The fighting in eastern Ukraine has claimed nearly 2,100 lives, according to the United Nations, with half of those in the past few weeks as Ukrainian troops regained more and more rebel-held territory. The unrest began in April, a month after Russia annexed Ukraine's Black Sea peninsula of Crimea.

Information for this article was contributed by Lynn Berry and Matti Huuhtanen of The Associated Press.

A Section on 08/17/2014

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