Ukraine Begins Inspecting Russian Aid | WPN World People News

Ukraine says its border guards and customs officials have begun inspecting a convoy of Russian trucks that Moscow says is carrying humanitarian aid for war-torn eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine had refused to allow the nearly 300 trucks to enter the country for fear that Russia might use the convoy as a pretext for a full-scale invasion.

Authorities in Kyiv had said convoy goods would only be permitted entry into Ukraine after they are first inspected by the Red Cross.

International relief officials say much of eastern Ukraine, including the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, lack medical supplies, water and electricity, as Ukrainian government forces press their offensive aimed at ending the rebellion by pro-Russian separatists.

Meanwhile, two of the most senior pro-Russian separatists battling Ukraine forces near the Russian border quit Thursday, as Ukrainian troops pummeled locations near the rebel-held cities of Luhansk and Donetsk.

Artillery shells struck the center of Donetsk for the first time since rebels launched their rebellion against Ukrainian rule in April. Western news reports say at least 25 people were killed in the Donetsk shelling, while Ukraine reported nine troops killed.

The departures of Russian nationals Igor Strelkov and Valery Bolotov also came as Russian President Vladimir Putin met Thursday with Russian lawmakers in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia seized from Ukraine and annexed earlier this year.

Commenting on strife in eastern Ukraine, Putin said it had been plunged into "bloody chaos and murder," and that "a large-scale humanitarian disaster" is unfolding there. He said Russia would do everything in its power to "ensure that this conflict is ended as quickly as possible, so that blood stops flowing in Ukraine."

He also said Russia should not fence itself off from the outside world, and "consolidate and mobilize but not for war or any kind of confrontation.''

Source: Voice of America