MOSCOW, December 11. /TASS/. Russia will contribute up to $5 million to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) to help people in Ukraine, the government website said on Thursday.
“The decision authorizes the allocation of up to $5 million from the 2014 federal budget in a one-time voluntary targeted contribution by the Russian Federation to the budget of the UN World Food Program to go toward expenses involved in the provision of humanitarian assistance to the Ukrainian people via the UN WFP,” the government’s statement said.
The document was considered and approved at a meeting of the Russian government on December 4.
On December 2, the United Nations said it planned to provide food assistance to 120,000 residents in Ukraine’s war-torn Luhansk and Donetsk regions by April 2015.
As winter sets in, the organization plans to expand assistance and provide 40,000 residents of Ukraine’s eastern regions with food baskets of canned meat and fish, buckwheat, pasta, beans, butter, sugar, salt, and tea. Each basket is meant for one person for a month’s period. Special one-month $45 vouchers will be issued to another 80,000.
The program will be implemented in conflict-hit regions not covered by humanitarian aid.