Updated 4:04 p.m. Moscow Time
MOSCOW, September 20 (RIA Novosti) - The first part of the third Russian convoy of trucks delivering humanitarian aid to Donetsk has approached the Russian border.
Some 70 trucks that have already been unloaded formed a column in the parking lot on the outskirts of Donetsk awaiting their return to Russia.
The third Russian humanitarian convoy comprises some 200 trucks carrying water, food, generators and medication to the eastern regions of Ukraine.
The unloading of the first trucks, which arrived in Donetsk this morning, began as 35 volunteers unloaded a truck containing rice.
On August 22, the first Russian convoy with humanitarian aid that consisted of 280 trucks arrived in Luhansk after a series of delays. The second humanitarian convoy arrived in eastern Ukraine last weekend, carrying cereals, sugar, tinned food, drinking water, medication and warm clothes, and safely returned to Russia.
Ukraine has greatly suffered from violence as a result of the dispute between the Kiev authorities and independence supporters of eastern Ukraine which began in mid-April. The conflict has cost more than 3,000 lives to date.
A ceasefire agreement was established on September 5 during the meeting of a trilateral Contact Group in Minsk on the situation in Ukraine. A memorandum agreed upon on Saturday during Minsk talks detailed the exact steps to fulfilling agreements in the protocol.
