Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

Moscow: An enormous Russian convoy of about 280 trucks carrying humanitarian aid has left Moscow for south-eastern Ukraine, Russian television and news agencies reported on Tuesday.

Television reports showed a long line of tractor-trailers stretched along a road. A Russian Orthodox priest was shown sprinkling the trucks with holy water before their departure. Many of the vehicles were draped in huge banners reading "humanitarian aid" in Russian, along with the double-headed eagle of Russia and its white, blue and red flag.

The convoy was carrying 1814 tonnes of humanitarian aid, according to the news agency Itar-Tass. It included 362 tonnes of cereals, 90 tonnes of sugar, 56 tonnes of baby food, 49 tonnes of medical equipment and medicine, 12,000 sleeping bags and 69 generators of various sizes, the agency reported.

The Russian government began a concerted effort to get the convoy accepted on Monday, setting off alarm bells in the West despite the Kremlin's insistence that it was co-ordinating its efforts with the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Refugees from south-eastern Ukraine arrive at a refugee camp set in the Russian border city of Donetsk. Photo: AFP

The secretary-general of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has estimated that there is a "high probability" that Russia will intervene militarily in Ukraine, and Ukraine has announced that even more Russian troops than previously thought are massed along the border.

But Russian officials repeatedly insisted that the convoy was to provide relief, particularly to the besieged, separatist-held city of Luhansk, where residents have been without water and electricity for days.

President Vladimir Putin on Monday called the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, to tell him that the convoy was being dispatched. Barroso responded by warning "against any unilateral military actions in Ukraine, under any pretext, including humanitarian," the European Union said in a statement.

The Ukrainian government approved the aid convoy, but only if delivered under the auspices of the Red Cross. The office of President Petro Poroshenko issued a statement saying that he had spoken with US President Barack Obama, who also welcomed the decision to allow humanitarian aid under Red Cross auspices into the city of Luhansk.

A spokesman for the Red Cross said the logistical details for the convoy's entry into Ukraine had yet to be worked out.

"A general agreement exists but not a detailed plan," said Andre Loersch, the spokesman, speaking by telephone from Kiev. The general agreement calls for the Russian Federation to hand over humanitarian aid, which will then be distributed by the Red Cross. Poroshenko has consulted twice by telephone in recent days with Peter Maurer, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, on the agreement, he said.

In Kiev, the former Ukrainian president, Leonid Kuchma, who has served as a mediator between the government and the rebels, said the aid would be distributed to hospitals, kindergartens, orphanages and other people in need. "The militants must not receive one gram," he was quoted as saying by the news agency Interfax.

The Russian aid convoy would cross into Ukraine near Kharkiv, he said, and would then drive to Luhansk. Along with the Red Cross, representatives of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which has also been part of the mediation effort, would accompany the convoy to Luhansk, Kuchma said.

The convoy evoked suspicion and anger from some Ukrainian politicians on Tuesday. At a morning session of parliament, called the Rada, Oleh Lyashko, a nationalist politician who has helped form several paramilitary battalions, called for Ukraine to turn back the convoy and seal the border.

"How can you take humanitarian aid from a country that destroys our country?" Lyashko said. "Stop this nonsense."

Parliament was also due to vote on imposing economic and legal sanctions against 172 Russian, Ukrainian and other foreign nationals.

Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk proposed the sanctions on Friday, saying they were directed at those "who have been financing terrorism, supporting the annexation of Crimea and encroached on the territorial integrity of Ukraine".

There has been speculation for months over whether Russia wanted to intervene directly in the conflict next door. Most analysts concluded that it did not, figuring that the costs of what would amount to an occupation would be too high in soldiers' lives and in financial terms, especially in the face of sweeping Western sanctions.

But as the area controlled by the separatists has gradually shrunk to the two cities of Luhansk and Donetsk, the question has focused on what Putin would do to assure continued influence over events in Ukraine. Kiev and the West accuse Moscow of sending men and weapons to the area, a charge the Kremlin has denied.

The headquarters for Ukraine's "anti-terrorism operation," as the military campaign in the east is officially known, said that military raids had destroyed three rebel checkpoints. Shelling continued in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions early on Tuesday.

In Donetsk, the City Council said that shelling had damaged the electricity infrastructure, leaving 206 substations without power.