Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said he is concerned about the situation with the breakthrough of the Russian “humanitarian convoy” across the Ukrainian border, but promises to do everything possible to avoid more serious consequences.
He said this at a meeting with Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius, the press service of the head of state reported.
“We will do our best to ensure that this did not lead to more serious consequences,” he said.
He said that on his instruction Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin and Chief of Ukraine’s Presidential Administration Borys Lozhkin had contacted their Russian counterparts to “bring Ukraine’s concern and propose returning the situation to the field of international law.”
Poroshenko noted that a few days ago Ukraine passed its humanitarian cargo to the International Committee of the Red Cross. Representatives of the customs and border services were sent to the Russian Donetsk border checkpoints with the instruction to permit the access of a humanitarian column from Russia led and accompanied by the Red Cross.
“Today these agreements were violated, and the Russian side decided to ignore them and unilaterally renounced the participation of the Red Cross,” he said.
Poroshenko also said that Ukraine had fulfilled all of its obligations – 35 Russian vehicles were cleared. The only factor that prevented the Red Cross from carrying out a humanitarian mission is the shelling of roads by terrorists, through which the column was supposed to move to Luhansk.
“The Red Cross has not received any confirmation of a ceasefire from terrorists,” he said, adding that a convoy of over a hundred trucks entered Ukraine without customs inspection, border clearance and was not accompanied by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
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