Russia describes self as leader among donors to Moldova’s drought appeal

The Russian Government has allocated 986.5M rubles (about USD40M) to diminish the losses suffered by Moldova following the last summer drought. According to the assessments of the Russian Embassy to Chisinau, on the completion of the humanitarian programs for Moldova’s population, Russia can consider itself as a leader among foreign donors in this respect, reads a communique of the diplomatic mission. The embassy finds that the data announced later in February by the Moldovan Agriculture Ministry do not contain yet information on the aids arrived from Russia since November last year. The embassy says the first Russian aid came from Gazprom, which transferred 100M rubles (USD4M) to the Moldovan treasury in November last year to buy fuel for fall sowing. Russia sent the first consignment of wheat to Moldova on March 5, this year. All in all, 210 train cars with humanitarian aid are expected to Moldova, the release reads. The assistance for the Gagauz Autonomy is assessed at 88M rubles (USD3.5M). The first part of the consignment, 59 tonnes, was brought by planes. During this month, 5 tonnes of wheat and 60 tonnes of sunflower oil will be sent to Gagauzia by railway. The diplomatic mission also mentions two ultrasonography devices worth USD63,000 were recently donated to Gagauz medical units. “Thus, the volume of the Russian humanitarian aid, only to the population on the right bank of the Nistru, will be about USD14.5M by later in March, which we hope will find mirroring in the official statistics,” reads the embassy’s communique. The same source points out that they started to provide humanitarian aid to the people from the Transnistrian area in January 2008 to diminish the consequences of the 2007 drought. The total amount of the allocations in this regard, during 12 months of 2008, will reach 640M rubles (about USD25.6M.)