The head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, Arsen Avakov, threatened on Wednesday that a convoy with Russian humanitarian aid would not be allowed through the territory of the Kharkov region.

“No Putin’s “humanitarian convoy” will be allowed through the territory of the Kharkov region,” Avakov wrote on his Facebook page, emphasizing that this is an official statement. And calling Russian humanitarian aid “a provocation of a cynical aggressor.”

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that the Ukrainian authorities guaranteed the safety of the humanitarian convoy when passing through the territory they control. And Moscow, for its part, agreed to Kiev’s demands regarding the convoy’s route, cargo inspection and other aspects of the humanitarian operation and allowed to take on board the trucks not only representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the OSCE, but also the Ukrainian authorities, as well as to replace the Russian license plates on trucks to Ukrainian ones.

Earlier, former President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma said that a convoy with humanitarian aid would cross the Ukrainian-Russian border at a customs post in the Kharkov region.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said at a government meeting on Wednesday that Kyiv can only accept humanitarian aid from the ICRC. “Ukraine can accept any types of humanitarian assistance only within the framework of international law and exclusively from the Red Cross,” Interfax quotes him as saying .

Yatsenyuk, like Avakov, who came to the government of Ukraine after the removal of Viktor Yanukovych from the post of president in February 2014, assured that the Ukrainian state “has provided and will continue to provide for its citizens, and therefore the government is allocating an additional 10 million hryvnia for the purchase of essential goods.” And he instructed the ministries of infrastructure, agricultural policy and food, health and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to form their own convoy to deliver essential goods to eastern Ukraine.

On August 12, Russia sent humanitarian aid to residents of eastern Ukraine. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the humanitarian convoy consists of 280 vehicles with trailers, which are loaded with 69 sets of power plants, 400 tons of cereals, 340 tons of canned food, 30 tons of salt, 100 tons of sugar, 62.4 tons of baby food, 54 tons of medical equipment, 12 300 sleeping bags.

Avakov threatened not to let the humanitarian convoy to Ukraine pass