KIEV — White-tarped trucks from the controversial Russian convoy that provoked a dramatic escalation of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine began returning to Russian territory Saturday after delivering supplies to the war-torn city of Luhansk, officials said, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived in the capital Kiev for a symbolic show of support and behind-the-scenes efforts to ease rising tensions.
Russia had sent the aid convoy of over 200 trucks into rebel-held Ukrainian territory Friday without permission had provoked a strong response from Ukraine, a move that a top Ukrainian security official described as a "direct invasion." The maneuver came amid reports from NATO that Ukrainian troops were coming under Russian artillery fire from inside their borders. A top Lithuanian diplomat was also killed in ongoing violence.
"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.
It was unclear early Saturday how Ukrainian officials were going to respond to the incursion.
The charges coincided with Russia's decision to move the convoy into Ukraine on Friday without either government permission or the participation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The convoy reached the Eastern city of Luhansk late Friday, where thousands have been trapped without fresh food and water, and began unloading relief supplies.
Nikolai Sinitsyn, spokesman for the Russian federal border service in the Rostov region, said Saturday the trucks had unloaded and "already returned to Russia," according to Russian news service Interfax. The trucks' speedy exit from Ukraine is roughly in keeping with the timeline of the ICRC's plans to have the aid trucks deliver emergency supplies, and immediately return to Russia by the road on which they came.
The convoy trucks – which had been stopped at the border for a week – had prompted fears that Russia was using the humanitarian assistance to supply rebel forces in Eastern Ukraine.
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. 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."
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.
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."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko by phone on Friday to express her "great concern" over the unescorted convoy and press for a cease fire, German officials said.
She is now in Kiev for meetings with Poroshenko and others Saturday. She wants to show support for Ukrainians who are risking their lives to support democracy and a stronger alliance with the European Union, analysts said, and is frustrated that Germany's behind-the-scenes diplomatic efforts to end the crisis have gone nowhere.
Putin had told Merkel in the phone call Friday 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.
On Friday evening, Russian state television broadcast images of the trucks pulling up to a loading dock in rebel-held Luhansk. Shirtless men wearing jeans unloaded large white bags that appeared to be filled with grain, beans or flour and moved them into a warehouse.
Friday, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry urged international allies to condemn Russia for what Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called a "flagrant violation of international law."
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."
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.
Yet the convoy was shrouded in controversy from the start. When Russia first sent the trucks toward Ukraine they did it without specific ICRC authorization, prompting Ukraine and its allies to worry that the shipment was designed as cover for a military invasion.
Ukrainian officials refused to let the trucks through a government-controlled border crossing in the Kharkiv region, so the convoy headed for rebel-
controlled territory instead.
The trucks then spent more than a week idling outside the Izvaryne border crossing to Luhansk, which is controlled by pro-Russian rebels, as government ministers tried to hammer out a deal.
Reporters in the area noted the presence of food, water and emergency supplies in the trucks. Some on the scene also reported seeing heavy military vehicles near the convoy on the Russian side of the border.
Last week, Western reporters watched a column of Russian armored personnel carriers enter Ukraine while the aid convoy was waiting 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.
On Thursday, Russian customs officials cleared the first group of aid trucks into the border zone between Russian and Ukrainian territory, where they were waiting for the go-ahead to enter Ukraine.
That night, ICRC officials said the first trucks would likely enter Ukraine on Friday.
William Branigin, Anne Gearan and Karen DeYoung in Washington and Stephanie Kirchner in Berlin contributed to this report.
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