Russia to Send Second Aid Convoy to Ukraine This Week

Foreign Minister Also Hopes for Political Resolution to Conflict at Presidents' Meeting on Tuesday

By Olga Razumovskaya, WSJ
Aug. 25, 2014 5:50 a.m. ET

MOSCOW—Russia wants to send a second convoy of humanitarian aid to Ukraine as early as this week, its foreign minister said on Monday.

Sergei Lavrov said his country also hopes to discuss a political resolution of the conflict in Ukraine at a meeting between Russian and Ukrainian presidents as well as European Union officials in Minsk, Belarus, on Tuesday.

The comments come ahead of the first meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's Petro Poroshenko in Minsk in two months; and amid mounting casualties in the conflict-stricken eastern Ukraine.

On Sunday, Russia hinted that it was interested in delivering more aid to battle-torn eastern Ukraine after all the trucks from the first aid convoy returned to Russia.

Mr. Lavrov said in a Monday briefing that Russia had sent a note to Ukraine on Sunday detailing the kind of humanitarian aid it would like to send.

(More here.)