13 August 2014

Flash Point: Russian Army Now Has 45,000 Troops on Ukrainian Border; Russian “Humanitarian Aid” Convoy of 280 Trucks Has Left Moscow Bound for the Ukraine

Huge Russian Convoy Leaves Moscow for Ukraine, Bearing Aid

NEIL MacFARQUHAR

New York Times, 

August 12, 2014

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.

The Russian aid has been an object of suspicion for Ukraine and its Western allies, who 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.

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.

Television pictures 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 NTV channel quoted drivers as saying 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.

The convoy was carrying 2,000 tons of humanitarian aid, according to the Itar-Tass news agency. 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.

In talking about the convoy on Monday, Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said he hoped the humanitarian effort by Russia would not be blocked by Kiev or its Western allies.

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 insistance that it was coordinating its efforts with the Red Cross.

The secretary general of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, estimated that there was a “high probability” that Russia could attack, and Ukraine announced that even more Russian troops than previously thought were massed along the borders.

But Russian officials repeatedly insisted that it merely wanted to provide relief, particularly to the besieged, separatist-held city of Luhansk whose residents have been living without water and electricity for days.

Speaking by telephone on Monday, Mr. Putin told the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, 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.

The Ukrainian government approved the aid convoy, but only if it was delivered under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross. The office of President Petro O. Poroshenko issued a statement saying that he had spoken Monday with President Obama, who also welcomed the decision to allow humanitarian aid into the city of Luhansk under Red Cross auspices.

The I.C.R.C. said that many details remained to be worked out, including security guarantees. “The practical details of this operation need to be clarified before this initiative can move forward,” Laurent Corbaz, the group’s head of operations for Europe and Central Asia, said in a statement. The Red Cross stressed that it never accepts armed escorts.

“Very intensive work is being carried out,” said Dmitri S. Peskov, the Russian presidential spokesman, according to Russian news agencies. Once the details were worked out, the aid would be delivered immediately because of the “tragic humanitarian situation” in Luhansk and Donetsk, he said.

There has been speculation for months over whether Russia wanted to intervene directly in the conflict next door. Most analysts concluded that it did not — the costs of what would amount to an occupation would just 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 been what Mr. Putin would do to assure continued influence over events in Ukraine. Ukraine and the West accuse Moscow of sending men and weapons to the area, a charge Russia has denied.

There is little doubt that Russia possesses the capacity to carry out an invasion of southeastern Ukraine. NATO has said in the past that Russia had 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.

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