About 3,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid intended for residents of southeastern Ukraine are in the Rostov-on-Don region of Russia and should be delivered to its destination within a week, Russian Deputy Emergency Situations Minister Vladimir Stepanov said at a meeting of the public committee for the support of the residents of southeastern Ukraine on Thursday.

About 3,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid intended for residents of southeastern Ukraine are in the Rostov-on-Don region of Russia and should be delivered to its destination within a week, Russian Deputy Emergency Situations Minister Vladimir Stepanov said at a meeting of the public committee for the support of the residents of southeastern Ukraine on Thursday.

"We have addressed the Ukrainian leadership through the Russian Foreign Ministry to say that we are ready to deliver the humanitarian cargo, and we hope that about 3,000 tonnes of humanitarian cargo will be delivered to residents of the southeast [of Ukraine] within a week," Stepanov said.

This humanitarian assistance for all groups of residents of southeastern Ukraine will be continued, and the Emergency Situations Ministry will also help the local population prepare for winter, he said.

The Russian government has recently received thousands of appeals concerning the delivery of humanitarian aid, Stepanov said. "We have reached an agreement with the leaderships of the republics [the self-proclaimed Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics] on the necessary materials - this concerns primarily construction materials - so that they have the chance to restore socially significant facilities by winter, and we have taken into consideration the needs of socially significant facilities. These are primarily hospitals and kindergartens, and we have also taken into consideration that fuel should be provided to housing and utilities services and also firefighting units on duty," Stepanov said, adding that the humanitarian convoy contains items of primary necessity.

All the vehicles have been concentrated in the Rostov region and are ready to proceed to their final destination as soon as all issues are resolved, he said.

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