All Russian aid trucks return from Ukraine

MOSCOW, Aug 23 (agencies): Hundreds of trucks from a bitterly disputed Russian aid convoy to rebel-held eastern Ukraine rolled back across the border into Russia Saturday.

All of the trucks in Moscow's controversial aid shipment to rebel-held parts of Ukraine returned to Russia Saturday, OSCE monitors said.

The return of the convoy "is complete", the acting head of the OSCE mission observing the Russian border post known as Donetsk, Paul Picard, told AFP.

Kiev had accused Russia of invading Ukraine, while the West warned that the move could lead to an escalation in the four-month conflict.

The OSCE said Friday that only 227 vehicles had crossed the border, while Russian authorities had previously said the convoy consisted of around 280 lorries.

"We have counted 220 vehicles returning today" plus the seven support vehicles that returned on Friday, said Picard.

The Russian lorries rolled over the border on Friday without Red Cross escorts after Moscow accused Ukraine of intentionally delaying the convoy.

The aid, which Ukraine suspected might be a pretext for a Russian invasion, had been held up at the border for a week while Moscow, Kiev and the International Committee of the Red Cross tried to reach agreement on the convoy's passage.

Russia had previously allowed journalists look inside a handful of the trucks, which it said were carrying around 1,800 tonnes of aid including food, water, medicine and electrical generators.

The lorries unloaded their cargo in rebel-held Lugansk late on Friday, according to Russian state television.

Russian television stations showed footage of customs agents looking in the returning vehicles and finding them empty.

A Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman snapped at the United States for failing to report the return of the trucks.

The return of the trucks may help ease the tension to some extent in time for the arrival of Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel in the Ukrainian capital later on Saturday for talks on how to end the crisis over Ukraine.

Western leaders had joined Kiev in calling the Russian convoy-about 220 white-painted trucks loaded with tinned food and bottle water-an illegal incursion onto Ukraine's soil, and demanded that they be withdrawn as soon as possible.

A Reuters journalist at the Donetsk-Izvarino border crossing, where the convoy rolled into Ukraine on Friday, said about 10 trucks had passed back into Russia and more could be seen in the distance arriving at the crossing.