Saturday, August 23, 2014

Looks like Russia's "aid" convoy went off without a hitch. -Yahoo/AP

Russian trucks returning after delivering their cargo. -Yahoo/AP

According to the Associated Press, 225 trucks from Russia's aid convoy have returned home after delivering their cargo. The rest of the 260 vehicle convoy are expected back soon. It appears that fears that the convoy would be attacked or destroyed were unfounded. Reporters were able to confirm that at least some of these trucks were loaded with humanitarian aid. For their part Ukraine continued to voice it's outrage over the violation of its borders. Ukraine and its EU and American allies are claiming that Russia has troops operating in the country and that the convoy was just a ruse to send supplies to the rebels. 

My Comment:
Fairly impressive operation by the Russians here. Regardless of the actual intentions of this convoy, the fact is that it was a logistical miracle that they pulled this off. Unloading 260 vehicles in a day in an active war zone is no small feat and the Russians in charge of this operation deserve our respect if nothing else. Hopefully, at least some of these supplies work there way down to the civilians trapped in the crossfire between Ukraine and Russia... 

I'm personally kind of shocked that the operation went off without a hitch. I thought there was a real chance that Ukraine would destroy these trucks, or at least try to. The must have figured out that even if the convoy was a sham, and I am not convinced that it was a complete one, blowing up a convoy of trucks marked as humanitarian aid would not play well. Either that or they weren't willing to further antagonize Putin and decided to just suck it up and deal with it. It's even possible that they did not have the military strength to pull off such an operation. Either way this is probably the best possible outcome for everyone in terms of avoiding a wider war. 

No comments:

Post a Comment