"In 2016, the [Red Cross] budget will amount to 64.4 million francs," Potemkin said at a meeting of the Russian parliament's Support Committee for the South-East of Ukraine.
The budget will be used to supply the residents of Donbass with food and medicine, as well as restoring electricity and gas supply, Potemkin added. Some 20,000 people are set to receive aid monthly, including provisions for over 3,000 households to receive support in running small businesses, according to the ICRC representative.
In 2015, the Red Cross distributed 650,000 food packages and 660,000 hygiene sets in eastern Ukraine, according to Potemkin. He added that 89 Donbass health care organizations had received ICRC aid, and another 13 were restored with Red Cross involvement.
On Wednesday, the head of the ICRC delegation in Ukraine, Alain Aeschlimann, told RIA Novosti that hospitals in eastern Ukraine were experiencing shortages of modern equipment, while people living close to the conflict line needed to be provided with mobile clinics.
Earlier in January, ICRC President Peter Maurer stated that the organization intended to step up its humanitarian operations in Ukraine in 2016.
Ukraine has been mired in violence since 2014, when Kiev forces launched a military operation against local militias in the country’s eastern Donbas region. The operation was a response to local residents' refusal to recognize the pro-Western government in Kiev, which came to power earlier in 2014 after what they consider to be a coup.
