KAMENSK-SHAKHTINSKY, Russia — A Russian aid convoy destined for rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine resumed its disputed southward journey on Thursday, in apparent defiance of demands by the government in Kiev that the shipment be stopped. Moving at a steady 50 miles per hour, more than 200 commercial trucks and some army trucks with white tarpaulins set out before daybreak from a military base in the city of Voronezh, where the convoy had halted for more than a day after protests from Kiev.
Its progress coincided with what seemed like conciliatory remarks on Thursday by President Vladimir V. Putin in a speech to federal lawmakers in Yalta, Crimea. “We will do everything we can to help secure an end to this conflict as soon as possible, so that there will be no more bloodshed in Ukraine,” Mr. Putin was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying. Mr. Putin also referred to what he called the “large-scale humanitarian catastrophe running riot in the southeast” of Ukraine. The president said Russia did not want to sever its contacts with the rest of the world but refused to be treated with contempt, echoing remarks in March when he announced the annexation of Crimea, accusing the world of ignoring or denigrating the country since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Mr. Putin has previously made conciliatory remarks about Ukraine, only to continue what the Ukrainian government and its Western allies have described as a steady supply of men and arms to the separatists to destabilize the country. Russia has denied those claims.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/15/world/europe/russian-convoy.html?_r=0
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