TSKHINVALI, September 3 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry will send humanitarian aid on Wednesday to three Georgian villages near the border with South Ossetia, devastated by the recent conflict, a ministry spokesman said.

The convoys of vehicles will deliver over 20 metric tons of food supplies, including flour, sugar, canned meat and fish, and drinking water to the villages of Nikozi, Kvemo and Ditsi, following a request from South Ossetia.

The villages are located in the buffer zone within Georgia, to the north of Gori, where Russia continues to have a security presence.

"The humanitarian aid is being provided to allow the residents of the damaged villages to carry on with their daily lives," the spokesman said.

Villages on the Georgian side of the border with South Ossetia, the breakaway province which Russia declared as an independent state last week, were caught up in heavy fighting that began with Georgia's artillery bombardment of South Ossetia in the early hours of August 8.

In the attack, around 70% of buildings in South Ossetia's capital, Tskhinvali, were destroyed, and gas and electricity supplies were cut off. Russia has estimated damages caused by the Georgian attack on South Ossetia, home to around 80,000, at more than $1 billion.