International experts have been unable to visit the crash site of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, due to heavy fighting in the Donetsk area. Kiev and anti-government forces are blaming each other for hampering the investigation.
Malaysia Airlines MH17 plane crash in Ukraine LIVE UPDATES
“We heard indications there's fighting going on,” said
Alexander Hug, deputy head for the Organization for Security and
Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) monitoring mission in Ukraine.
“The situation on the ground appears to be unsafe...we
therefore decided to deploy tomorrow morning,” he added.
Hug expressed concerns that the fighting near the village of
Grabovo in Ukraine’s Donetsk region will “most likely affect
crash site.”
Forensic experts arrived in Ukraine to recover the remains of
passengers that have not yet been returned to the Netherlands for
identification.
The Malaysian jet was carrying 298 people, the majority of them
Dutch citizens, when it crashed on July 17. Coffins with the
remains of 227 victims have already been delivered to the
Netherlands.
Although the fighting is disrupting the investigation, the
Netherlands, Australia, and Malaysia have ruled out sending an
international armed mission to secure the crash site.
“We concluded there was a real risk that an international
mission would immediately be involved in the conflict in
Ukraine,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said.
Anti-government forces have blamed Ukrainian authorities for the
outbreak of violence around the crash site.
Kiev is “trying to avoid exposure” by intensifying
military action in the area surrounding the crash site, said
Aleksandr Boroday, prime minister of the self-proclaimed People's
Republic of Donetsk.
The behavior of the Ukrainian government “contradicts the
decision by [President Petro] Poroshenko to declare the
40-kilometer zone around the site of the tragedy a territory of
ceasefire,” he added.
Kiev hurried to deny the claims, accusing the militia in the
Donetsk Region of hampering the work of the international expert
team.
"Terrorists back to their normal outrageous practice: they don't
allow OSCE monitors to access the MH17 site, claiming Ukraine
army is fighting nearby,” Ukrainian Foreign Minsiter Pavlo
Klimkin wrote on Twitter. “Their argument is fake. Ukraine is
committed to its unilateral ceasefire within a 40 kilometer
zone.”
But US photographer Patrick Lancaster, who arrived at the MH17
crash site on Sunday, confirmed to RT that Ukrainian forces are
advancing in the area.
“There were jets flying overhead and we could hear explosions
in the distance,” he said.
When Lancaster and his team tried to navigate their way out of
the crash site area, “every road that we’ve turned on, there were
tank tracks going towards [the nearby rebel-held towns of] Torez
and Shakhtersk.”
“Locals told me that they witnessed Ukrainian tanks going down
the road. It’s pretty obvious that the Ukrainian military is
trying to retake Torez and Shakhtersk,” the photographer
said.
The situation in the area is “very dangerous. Very many
explosions happening. Every few minutes there are several
explosions and heavy gunfire,” Lancaster stressed. “I
can see the two towns burning, basically.”
Russia assembles MH17 investigation team
Meanwhile, Moscow has put together a team of experts to take part
in the international investigation. Oleg Storchevoy, desputy head
of Russia's federal air traffic agency Rosaviation, has been put
in charge of the group.
According to Storchevoy, the main task of the international
experts will be “finding the true reasons which led to this
tragedy,” because “the whole world, including Russia, is
interested in objective investigation.”
“There was an official request from the Dutch side to include
Russian experts into the commission,” he added.
The commission has just been formed, and it has not yet been
decided whether Russian specialists will be require to travel to
Ukraine to examine the crash site, Storchevoy said.
“But we are ready to participate in any actions deemed necessary
by the commission,” he added.
Storchevoy pointed out that there will be no military experts on
the commission from the Russian side, since the accident under
investigation involves a civilian aircraft.