Daily Ukraine Crisis Updates – August 22, 2014
News | August 22, 2014
- (ITAR-TASS) The Russian humanitarian aid convoy unilaterally began to move towards Luhansk, crossing the Ukrainian border without clearance from Ukrainian border guards or a Red Cross escort and ignoring existing cargo clearing accords. The Russian Foreign Ministry declared the weeklong delay at the border “intolerable” and accused Kyiv of deliberately stalling it.
- Ukraine charged Russia with violating its borders by moving the trucks into the rebel-held east of the country after a weeklong delay at the border.
- (ITAR-TASS) Russian media reported that the convoy included about 100 trucks.
- (ITAR-TASS) Separatist militias of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic in the south-east of Ukraine were ready to ensure security of Russia’s humanitarian convoy in Luhansk.
- Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk said he doesn't rule out that the fact that Russia's humanitarian convoy has crossed the border into Ukraine is a provocation to be used for subsequent accusations of Kyiv of an attack on the convoy.
- (ITAR-TASS) The head of Ukraine’s Security Service said that Ukrainian military will not use air force aircraft against the Russian convoy carrying relief supplies which entered Ukraine.
- Russia’s foreign ministry warned Ukraine not to take any action against its humanitarian convoy.
- The EU’s foreign policy chief’s office said that Russia's decision to send a convoy of aid trucks across the border into eastern Ukraine without Kyiv's consent or an escort of international observers is a clear violation of Ukraine's border.
- The crossing by the Russian humanitarian convoy into Ukraine without Kyiv's permission is unacceptable, said the United States Embassy in Russia.
- (RIA Novosti) The Russian Foreign Ministry said that Kyiv is conducting a full-on military “cleansing” of the eastern Ukrainian cities of Luhansk and Donetsk before the country’s independence day on August 24.
- (Interfax Ukraine) The drivers of Russian trucks carrying humanitarian aid for Ukraine will next drive military vehicles that are being illegally sent into Ukraine, Chief of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Valentyn Nalyvaichenko said.
- (Interfax Ukraine) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko held consultations with the leaders of parliamentary factions to discuss the possibility of dissolving the Verkhovna Rada