"On Aug. 22, a convoy of more than 200 white-painted trucks carrying, according to the Russian government, humanitarian aid trundled into war-ravaged eastern Ukraine, suddenly and without permission from Ukrainian authorities, through a border post under the control of pro-Russian rebels. There were suspicions that the vehicles were really transporting Russian troops and materiel, but humanitarian aid (mostly food and water) was, in fact, reported the BBC, the cargo. Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko nevertheless quickly denounced Russia's dispatch of the trucks as a "direct invasion," the United States demanded Russia withdraw the convoy, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel decried the affair as "a dangerous escalation."