Turkish Red Crescent will send a humanitarian aid convoy to Ukraine on Friday.

"We are sending a humanitarian relief convoy to #Ukraine to address urgent basic needs, coordinating with Red Cross Ukraine,” Kerem Kinik, the head of the charity, said on Twitter.

“Our teams are being deployed to the region with warehousing tents, family-type tents and mobile catering vehicles for evacuees and #IDPs (internally displaced people),” Kinik added.

Defying threats of sanctions by the West, Moscow officially recognized Ukraine's regions of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states earlier this week, followed by the start of a military operation in Ukraine on Thursday.

Tensions started escalating late last year when Ukraine, the US, and its allies accused Russia of amassing tens of thousands of troops on the border with Ukraine.

They claimed that Russia was preparing to invade its western neighbor, allegations that were consistently rejected by Moscow./YS