REUTERS

More than 60 of the trucks for the proposed convoy left the Moscow area for Russia’s southern Rostov region on Sunday, Russian news agency RIA Novosti has reported, referring to Russia’s Emergency Ministry.

“These vehicles, along with ones travelling to Rostov region from other regions [of Russia] will form the eleventh convoy carrying humanitarian aid for the Donbas,” the Emergency Ministry said in a statement.

According to the Russians, the eleventh humanitarian convoy will include more than 120 trucks, which will deliver more than 1,400 tonnes of humanitarian aid.

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The Ukrainian government says Russia has never asked for permission to send its “aid convoys” into Ukraine, and they have never been fully inspected. The convoys cross into Ukraine at checkpoints on the Russian-Ukrainian border at which no Ukrainian officials can fully perform their duties. The last such convoy crossed into Ukraine on December 21.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has said Ukrainian officials were only allowed to inspect the contents of some of the trucks from previous convoys visually, from behind a fence.

Some of the trucks from the first convoy, which was sent into Ukraine in August were found to be half-empty when they were inspected by Western journalists.

Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council has said that the “aid convoys” that Russia sends into Ukraine without Kyiv’s permission are “only to support armed groups.” It said the trucks, which only ever visit areas of Ukraine where Russian-backed militants have seized control, deliver ammunition, rations and weapons to the armed gangs.