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A convoy of up to 280 trucks carrying “humanitarian aid” to Ukraine’s separatist-held regions left Russia today.

The vehicles set out from Moscow amid fears President Vladimir Putin will use a relief effort as cover for a military operation.

Russia’s state news agency said the trucks were carrying food, medicine, sleeping bags and power generators.

But Nato pointed to the renewed build-up of thousands of Russian troops and military hardware on the Ukrainian border.

In a statement last night the Kremlin said: “[Russia] in collaboration with representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross is sending an aid convoy to Ukraine.”

But the ICRC said afterwards it had only recently submitted a document to Russian and Ukrainian officials on delivering aid. It stressed that it needed agreement from all parties, security guarantees and that details of the operation needed to be “clarified”.

The EU said that in a telephone call, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso warned Mr Putin “against any unilateral military actions in Ukraine, under any pretext”.

Ukrainian officials say Russia has massed 45,000 troops on its border, while Nato claims there is a “high probability” Moscow will intervene.

Fears of an invasion have mounted as Ukrainian forces close in on the separatist stronghold of Donetsk.

Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said: “We see the Russians developing the narrative and the pretext for such [a military] operation under the guise of a humanitarian operation.”