BERLIN, October 10. /TASS/. Germany has officially notified the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) of its readiness to send to Ukraine reconnaissance drones.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Friday Berlin will dispatch to Ukraine two unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) designed to monitor the border, as well as “an armed escort”.

Steinmeier said it is necessary to ensure security for monitors. “Now we are waiting for decisions of the OSCE and its member countries,” the minister told journalists after a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Pavlo Klimkin.

The German tabloid Bild earlier reported that German Bundeswehr (armed forces) soldiers will protect the OSCE’s monitoring mission in Ukraine. The newspaper said the talk was about 200 paratroopers, 150 of whom will operate UAVs and control the situation in troubled areas in Ukraine’s embattled east.

The remaining 50 will guard the mission, Bild said, adding that the soldiers will carry arms.

The head of Ukraine's State Emergencies Service said on Friday that Germany has unloaded a first arrival of 86 trucks containing relief supplies for Ukraine. 

Around 100 more trucks will arrive within a month bringing building materials to construct houses in Zaporizhya, Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions.

Warm clothes, blankets, beds, home appliances and items of first necessity will also be delivered, said diplomat Anka Feldhusen from Germany's embassy to Ukraine.

According to the UN, some 3,500 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands have fled Ukraine’s war-torn southeast as a result of clashes between Ukrainian troops and local militias in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions during Kiev’s military operation conducted since mid-April to regain control over the breakaway territories, which call themselves the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s republics (DPR and LPR).

The parties to the Ukrainian conflict agreed on cessation of fire and exchange of prisoners during talks mediated by the OSCE on September 5 in Belarusian capital Minsk. The ceasefire took effect the same day but reports said it has occasionally been violated.