Part of the Russian convoy that drove into Ukraine without permission from the government in Kiev and ignited international outrage is returning to Russia. (Reuters)
KIEV — A convoy of Russian aid trucks that had escalated tensions between Moscow and Kiev by entering Ukraine without permission returned to Russia on Saturday as a Ukrainian military official alleged that Russians had loaded weapons and surveillance equipment onto the vehicles before they left.
Col. Andriy Lysenko, Ukraine’s military spokesman, said in a briefing that trucks that had entered the territory “under the guise of humanitarian convoys” had been loaded with Ukrainian-made equipment used to produce an advanced aircraft-tracking system, as well as ammunition for small arms, before they crossed back over the border Saturday morning.
The allegations came amid international outrage over Russia’s decision to send the aid convoy into Ukraine without the permission of the Ukrainian government and the support of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), an action that Ukrainians called a “direct invasion” and a “flagrant violation of international law.” Workers on the aid trucks, which had been stopped at the border for days, distributed food and other supplies to the besieged city of Luhansk in rebel-held territory Friday evening.
In addition, NATO said that Ukrainian troops have been coming under Russian artillery fire from inside their borders Friday — its strongest denunciation of Russia’s role in Ukraine to date — and a top Lithuanian diplomat was killed in ongoing violence. German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived in Kiev on Saturday for talks with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in a show of support and effort to ease rising tensions.
Nikolai Sinitsyn, spokesman for the Russian federal border service in the Rostov region, said the disputed aid trucks had been unloaded and “already returned to Russia,” according to the Russian news service Interfax. The trucks’ speedy exit from Ukraine would be roughly in keeping with the timeline of the ICRC’s plans to have the trucks deliver emergency supplies and immediately return to Russia by the road on which they came.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry hinted Saturday that Russia had plans to send more humanitarian aid and said that it would be happy to work with the ICRC, which the ministry called “a responsible partner” in a statement.
“We confirm the intention to continue cooperation with the ICRC in efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to the residents of southeastern Ukraine, the need for which has by no means disappeared,” the ministry statement said. “Our assistance is still in demand.”
On Friday, the White House condemned the Russian action and said it raised the likelihood that Russia planned the convoy as a pretext for invasion.
“At the same time as Russian vehicles violate Ukraine’s sovereignty, Russia maintains a sizeable military force on the Ukrainian border capable of invading Ukraine on very short notice,” National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said. “We recall that Russia denied its military was occupying Crimea until it later admitted its military role and attempt to annex this part of Ukraine.”
U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, the supreme allied commander in Europe, separately condemned “Russia’s illegal incursion” into Ukraine as he expressed concern about the massing of 20,000 Russian “combat-ready troops” on the border with eastern Ukraine and the flow of Russian arms and operatives to pro-Moscow separatist forces. The unauthorized convoy “indicates that Russia is more interested in resupplying separatists rather than supporting local populations,” Breedlove said in a statement.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Friday morning that Moscow had run out of patience with “delays” and other “excuses” from Ukraine after a nearly 10-day standoff where the trucks were stopped the border. It said Ukraine’s leaders were deliberately trying to slow-walk the delivery of aid to the war-torn region of Luhansk until “there is no one at all to provide help to.”
Officials had threatened a military response if the Russian convoy tried to force its way into Ukraine, despite the risk of triggering an all-out invasion by Russian forces. Yet allowing the trucks to disperse across the Luhansk region without any Ukrainian controls in effect allows Russia to force a cease-fire in Kiev’s fight against pro-Russian separatists.
State security chief Valentyn Nalyvaichenko told journalists in Kiev on Friday that Ukrainian forces would not use force against the convoy because they want to avoid “provocations.” But Ukraine’s prime minister struck a more confrontational tone.
“It’s clear that Russia is not planning to conduct any humanitarian mission,” Arseniy Yatsenyuk said on national television. “We need to use all methods to stop Russian military aggression.”
Merkel appeared with Poroshenko at a press conference Saturday afternoon to call for a peace agreement and to announce that Germany would be giving $660 million in aid to rebuild the infrastructure in eastern Ukraine destroyed by months of conflict and to help wounded soldiers.
“We need a peaceful solution, and we don’t want an open border that allows weapons to pass from Russia to Ukraine,” she said.
It was Merkel’s first visit to Ukraine after the bloody events earlier this year, when protesters who support the country’s closer association with the European Union were killed during demonstrations in Kiev’s Independence Square, or “Maidan.” Analysts said her visit was intended as a strong show of support by Europe’s most powerful leader and a rebuke to Putin, whose country has long-standing economic ties with Germany.
Merkel said that Putin’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula this year was a “violation of territorial integrity,” which, if accepted, could happen anywhere in Europe.
She had spoken to Putin and Poroshenko by phone on Friday to express her “great concern” over the unescorted convoy and to press for a cease-fire, German officials said.
Putin had told Merkel in the phone call that “explicit delays from the side of Kiev” forced Russia to send the convoy across the border unilaterally, according to Russian officials. Further delays in getting help to Luhansk residents, many of whom have no water or electricity, would be “unacceptable,” he added.
In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman, Rear Adm. John Kirby, stopped short of calling the movement an invasion but said “it strains credulity to think that this equipment’s not moving across the border accompanied by Russian forces.”
Kirby called on Russia to withdraw vehicles and personnel and threatened “additional costs and isolation” otherwise. That is a reference to potential further economic sanctions on Russia and diplomatic ostracizing of Moscow, tactics the West has applied for months with little success.
“They should not be doing this under the guise of a humanitarian convoy,” Kirby said.
The latest delays, however, emanated from the ICRC’s concerns for the safety of its workers, as the rebel-held areas remain dangerous. A Lithuanian envoy, Mykola Zelenec, was kidnapped and “brutally killed” by rebels in Luhansk, Lithuanian’s foreign minister Tweeted Friday, expressing “deep sorrow.”
Meanwhile, Russian shelling on border stations continued overnight and into the early hours of Saturday morning, Lysenko said. NATO had confirmed the Russian shelling for the first time Friday, a sign that the conflict is intensifying even though the separatists control a far smaller swath of territory now than they had in recent weeks.
“Russian artillery support — both cross-border and from within Ukraine — is being employed against the Ukrainian armed forces,” NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in a statement Friday, accusing Moscow of a “blatant breach of Russia’s international commitments” that would intensify a crisis he said it had helped to create and fuel.
“The disregard of international humanitarian principles raises further questions about whether the true purpose of the aid convoy is to support civilians or to resupply armed separatists,” Rasmussen said. It was the strongest denunciation of Russia’s role in Ukraine that NATO has issued and the first time the alliance has accused Russian forces of firing artillery at the Ukrainian army from within Ukraine.
Poroshenko had agreed last week to let Russian and European aid into rebel-held portions of the eastern region of Luhansk, but only if ICRC workers presided over the shipments. The ICRC asked for security guarantees, which Ukraine gave — but only for areas under government control.
On Friday morning, ICRC officials told Russia that after a night of heavy shelling in Luhansk, they did not yet have the necessary safety guarantees.
By that point, the Russian convoy had been idling outside the Izvaryne border crossing to Luhansk, which is controlled by pro-Russian separatists, for more than a week as government ministers tried to hammer out a deal to transport the food, water and emergency supplies in.
But negotiations were complicated by suspicions and mistrust that had plagued the convoy since it first set off. Russia never procured specific ICRC authorization before dispatching the trucks, prompting Ukraine and its allies to worry the convoy was cover for a military invasion.
Last week, Western reporters saw a column of Russian armored personnel carriers enter Ukraine while the aid convoy waited on the Russian side. Ukraine said its forces subsequently destroyed part of the column, but Russia denied that any of its vehicles had crossed the border or had been attacked.
Demirjian reported from Moscow. Michael Birnbaum in Moscow, William Branigin, Anne Gearan and Karen DeYoung in Washington, Stephanie Kirchner in Berlin and Alex Ryabchyn in Kiev contributed to this report.
Annie Gowen is The Post’s India bureau chief and has reported for the Post throughout South Asia and the Middle East.
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