| New York Times | - |
A
convoy of trucks said to be carrying aid await inspection in the town
of Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, Russia, near the Ukrainian border.
Ukraine Says It Destroyed Military Vehicles Crossing Border From Russia
KAMENSK-SHAKHTINSKY,
Russia — NATO and Ukraine said that a column of military vehicles
crossed into Ukraine from Russia last night and that most of them had
been destroyed by Ukrainian artillery fire. It was not clear whether
Russian soldiers or rebel separatists were driving the vehicles.
President
Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine said in a statement on his website that
he could confirm some Western news reports that the column had crossed
into Ukraine last night.
“The
president informed that the given information was trustworthy and
confirmed because the majority of the machines had been eliminated by
Ukrainian artillery at night,” the statement said.
In
Copenhagen, the secretary-general of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said
that the alliance had detected an “incursion” of vehicles from Russia
last night, adding: “What we have seen last night is the continuation of
what we have seen for some time.”
Financial markets in Europe and the United States swooned on news of the incursion, while oil prices jumped.
Ukraine Crisis in Maps
Meanwhile,
the convoy of more than 260 trucks that Russia says are filled with
food and other aid for civilians caught up in the fighting in eastern
Ukraine remained stalled inside Russia on Friday amid confusion over
when inspections would start. Ukraine and its Western allies want to
ensure that the cargo contains only relief supplies and not items that
could help pro-Russian fighters battling to survive a Ukrainian
offensive.
A
statement early Friday by the Ukrainian military said border guards had
started examining the trucks, but the military’s spokesman, Andriy
Lysenko, later denied this and said inspections could not begin until
the Ukrainian authorities received documents detailing the trucks’
contents.
Mr.
Lysenko said Ukraine had sent border guards and customs officials to a
Russian border town to examine the trucks but was still waiting for the
necessary documentation from the International Committee of the Red
Cross. The Red Cross, for its part, said Russia had yet to provide a
detailed inventory and called for a speedy resolution of the problem.
In
the interim, Red Cross staff members, representatives from the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and more than 50
Ukrainian border guards already on site had nothing to do.
In
a statement issued in Geneva, the Red Cross said swift action was need
to allow “confirmation of the strictly humanitarian nature of the
cargo.”
“As
and when agreement is reached, we plan to deliver this humanitarian aid
to people affected by conflict in eastern Ukraine, health facilities
and other welfare organizations,” Laurent Corbaz, the Red Cross’s head
of operations for Europe and Central Asia, said during a visit to the
Ukrainian capital, Kiev. “People are struggling to cope with limited
access to basic services such as water and electricity, so speed is of
the essence.”
At
the camp where the trucks were parked overnight, Russian officials and a
contingent of young men dressed identically in beige hats, T-shirts and
shorts allowed journalists to inspect trucks of their choice for a
second straight day. None could say definitively when they would leave.
“A day, two days, two weeks, a month,” said Boris Pashenko, a border service representative.
The
trucks were in a border zone close to several military bases, where
columns of armored military vehicles driving in the direction of the
Ukrainian border are a common sight. Two Western journalists reported
seeing 23 armored vehicles crossing a border post into Ukraine on
Thursday evening.
Ukraine and the United States have accused Russia of covertly arming pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine.
Russian
news agencies quoted an unidentified spokesman for the border guard
service as saying that the service, run by the F.S.B. — the successor
agency to the K.G.B. — had deployed more mobile teams near the border.
The spokesman said this was a response to increased infiltration by
Ukrainian servicemen into Russia and more frequent shelling across the
border. He denied that any vehicles had crossed the border, calling such
reports “completely untrue.”
Sergey
Karavaytsev of Russia’s Ministry for Emergency Situations denied that
the trucks in the convoy were from the military and said they were hired
through private businesses. Masked guards who said they were military
police officers also appeared at the camp site late Thursday evening.
Members of the Red Cross were also at the convoy’s field camp on Friday,
Mr. Karavaytsev said.
In
Kiev, Mr. Lysenko said that an agreement had been reached to allow the
inspection of the convoy, and the searches would start once the dispute
over paperwork was resolved. "Help is needed and we accepted it,” he
said, adding that Ukrainian inspectors had already traveled to Donetsk, a
small Russian town that has the same name as a separatist stronghold in
eastern Ukraine, to begin their work. “But we can’t start the procedure
because we don’t have documents.”
While
backing away from the angry denunciations that characterized Ukraine’s
initial response to Moscow’s relief effort, Mr. Lysenko repeated earlier
Ukrainian accusations that Russia was sending military assistance
across the border to pro-Russian rebels. He said unspecified military
equipment had been moved into Ukraine from Russia through a border area
controlled by the pro-Russian separatists.
Stung
by accusations that it is stalling the delivery of Russian relief
supplies to the eastern city of Luhansk and is not doing enough to
improve the plight of residents caught up in the fighting, Ukraine is
sending its own aid convoys to the besieged city. Mr. Lysenko said 71
Ukrainian trucks had been sent to the conflict zone with food, water,
tea, soap and other supplies. He said 390 tons of Ukrainian aid had
already arrived in Luhansk.
He
denied rebel claims that Ukrainian forces were responsible for the
shelling on Thursday of downtown Donetsk. Mr. Lysenko blamed rebels for
the shelling, accusing them of firing into the city from positions near
the Donetsk train station, but did not explain why the rebels would fire
into a city they control.
Russia
announced that Sergey V. Lavrov, the foreign minister, had spoken by
telephone with his German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, about
speeding the passage of the convoy. Aside from the urgent need to get
the supplies across the border, the two men also agreed to work toward
establishing a cease-fire while the aid is delivered, the Foreign
Ministry statement said.
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