DONETSK, October 23. /TASS/. The self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic suffers from an acute drug shortage and expects Russia’s help in supplying them.

“Supplies of medications from Ukraine have been suspended or even cancelled,” DPR deputy chairman of the Supreme Council Alexander Karaman told reporters on Thursday.

DPR Health Minister Viktor Kuchkovoy said that the republic’s government submitted a request to Russia for delivering another batch of humanitarian aid, specifying that supplies of medications are of crucial importance.

“We have held talks with our counterparts from Russia,” the minister said. “We are listing a bid for needed drugs and next week we are awaiting a first batch of medicine from Russia.”

In late September, the third humanitarian aid convoy returned to Russia after at least 200 KAMAZ trucks had delivered 2,000 tons of foodstuffs (including cereal and canned products), electric generating units, medications, warm clothing and bottled drinking water to war-torn Donbass — a largely industrialized region of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions in Ukraine’s east.

The first two convoys with Russian humanitarian aid for Ukraine’s south-east brought a total of 4,000 tons of cargo to the embattled city of Luhansk.

In early October, the Russian authorities made public their plans to dispatch the fourth humanitarian aid convoy. However, no date was specified.