DONETSK (Rostov Region), August 17 (RIA Novosti) — The first 16 trucks of Russia’s humanitarian aid convoy have arrived at the customs checkpoint at the Ukrainian border, and about the same number is expected to come later in the day, a representative of the contractor transport company told RIA Novosti Sunday.
"We expect about the same number of cars to arrive here today," the company's representative Sergei Sorokin told RIA Novosti.
The trucks parked in a line on the territory of an automobile company on the border. They will not cross the border or undergo customs checks on Sunday, he said.
The rest of the 280-truck convoy remains at the town of Kamensk-Shakhtinsky in the Rostov Region.
The representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) are inspecting the Russian trucks still parked at the site, where they have remained for several days awaiting the permission of the Ukrainian authorities to cross the border.
In early August, in the light of a worsening humanitarian situation in the Ukrainian east, Russia came up with a proposal at the UN Security Council to send an international humanitarian mission with Russian humanitarian aid under the auspices of the ICRC to the troubled regions.
On August 12, the convoy carrying about 2,000 tons of humanitarian aid, with 400 tons of grain, 100 tons of sugar, 62 tons of baby food, 54 tons of medication, 12,000 sleeping bags and 69 mobile electrical generators set off from the Moscow region heading towards conflict areas in crisis-torn Ukraine.
Source: RIA Novosti 17-08-2014
MiG-29 plane shot down by Luhansk fighters
KIEV, August 17 /ITAR-TASS/. Luhansk militia has shot down a MiG-29 (Fulcrum) fighter plane of the Ukrainian army in the country’s east, spokesman for Kiev’s military operation Leonid Matyukhin said on Sunday.The pilot ejected and was taken to a safe place, Matyukhin told the Ukrainian Channel 5.
Meanwhile, self-defense fighters in east Ukraine’s Donetsk have launched a counter-offensive on the Ukrainian troops in the area, commander of the pro-Kiev Donbass battalion Semyon Semenchenko wrote in his blog.
“Despite strange media reports in the last few days that ‘rebels are in agony and running away,’ the situation has, on the contrary, deteriorated,” he said.
“Fierce fighting is continuing for control of Saur-Mogila [near Donetsk]. We are being counter-attacked,” he said.
The Donbass battalion commander said the Ukrainian recruits’ combat spirit was low and the army was unable to defeat self-defense fighters with such command and existing corruption.
Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council earlier reported that 568 servicemen had been killed and another 2,120 wounded as of August 11 in Kiev’s military operation in the country’s east.
Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk earlier said that there were about 50,000 Ukrainian troops in the conflict area.
Pro-Kiev troops and local militias in the eastern Ukrainian Donetsk and Luhansk regions are involved in fierce clashes as the Ukrainian armed forces are conducting a military operation to regain control over the breakaway regions, which on May 11 proclaimed their independence at local referendums.
During the military operation, Kiev has used armored vehicles, heavy artillery and attack aviation. Many buildings have been destroyed and tens of thousands of people have had to flee Ukraine’s embattled east.
Source: ITAR-TASS 17-08-2014
