Russian aid trucks began arriving in the war-torn city of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine on Friday afternoon.

Earlier on Friday around 100 lorries carrying humanitarian supplies including food, water, medicines and generators crossed the border into Ukraine.

The government in Kyiv had refused authorisation and called the convoy a “direct invasion”.

The lorries had been held at the border for a week. Ukrainian officials said they had only checked around 30 out of 280 vehicles. Moscow accused Kyiv of deliberately holding up the delivery of humanitarian supplies.

Luhansk has suffered fierce fighting for many weeks and residents have been without running water and electricity for 20 days. The UN says over 2,000 people in eastern Ukraine have died since fighting began in April and more than 300,000 people have fled their homes.

Kyiv and Western leaders have suggested the convoy is in fact a covert military operation. Russia has dismissed that as nonsense.