MOSCOW, December 1. /TASS/. Russia’s Emergencies Ministry has completed a regular stage of its humanitarian operation to provide assistance to Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine and will soon start forming a new, ninth truck convoy, deputy chief of the ministry’s National Crisis Situations Control Center Oleg Voronov told TASS.

“The humanitarian mission has been completed for today. The ministry’s truck convoy without any problems delivered over 1,200 tons of humanitarian cargos to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and returned to (Russia’s) Rostov Region,” Voronov said.

“The formation of another convoy will start soon. Aid to Donbass will be rendered until it is required,” he emphasized.

Voronov said eight ministry convoys have delivered 10,700 metric tons of humanitarian cargos, including foodstuffs, medications and construction materials, to south-east Ukraine since mid-August.

Fierce clashes between troops loyal to Kiev and local militias in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions during Kiev’s military operation, conducted since mid-April, to regain control over the breakaway territories, which call themselves the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s republics, have killed over 4,000 people, brought massive destruction and forced hundreds of thousands to flee Ukraine’s south-east.

The parties to the Ukrainian conflict agreed on a ceasefire at talks mediated by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on September 5 in Belarusian capital Minsk two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed his plan to settle the situation in the east of Ukraine.

The ceasefire took effect the same day but has reportedly occasionally been violated.

The Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine comprising representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE adopted a memorandum on September 19 in Minsk, which outlined the parameters for the implementation of commitments on the ceasefire in Ukraine laid down in the Minsk Protocol of September 5.

The nine-point document in particular stipulates a ban on the use of all armaments and withdrawal of weapons with the calibers of over 100 millimeters to a distance of 15 kilometers from the contact line from each side. The OSCE was tasked with controlling the implementation of memorandum provisions.