IN UKRAINE, ARMED SEPARATISTS BLOCK ACCESS TO CRASH SITE AMID FEARS OF COVER-UP. Obama singles out Putin for waging a proxy war that led to the tragedy.

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Read it at The Guardian:

Pro-Russian separatists have mobbed the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine and are removing and destroying evidence that would be critical to any investigation. One rebel commander said his troops salvaged the Boeing 777’s black boxes (while another said they didn’t have them). Rebels can be seen picking through the rubble in photos. A rebel unit blocked a team from the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) from entering the site,...Worst of all, eyewitnesses said rebels stole 36 bodies from the crash site and were taking them to Donetsk.

[One rebel even fired into the air as the monitors were leaving, according to a spokesman for the organization, Michael Bociurkiw, who was there. Mr. Bociurkiw said bodies in the field were beginning to bloat. A separatist leader said that the governments of the Netherlands and Malaysia had asked the rebels informally not to disturb the crime scene, but that there were not enough refrigerators to keep the bodies there. N.Y. Times ]

Alexander Hug, second from left, a monitor with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, at the site of the crash in eastern Ukraine on Friday. Credit Dominique Faget/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images       

[U.S. Intelligence sources said they could] not pinpoint the origin of the missile launch or identify who launched it. “Those are the million-dollar questions,” said a senior Pentagon official.... The Ukrainian government released audio in which separatist rebels seemed to be discussing an SA-11 missile system that was moved into eastern Ukraine from Russia just before the Malaysian plane was destroyed.

American officials said that while they had not authenticated the tape, they had no reason to doubt it, and noted that the accents of the speakers and the scenario described seemed to fit existing information.

In recent months, Russians have funneled tanks, rockets, artillery and antiaircraft weapons to the separatists, according to American and European officials. Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, the top NATO commander, warned last month that the Russians had trained separatists to operate some of the heavy weaponry, although he did not mention SA-11 missiles specifically.

The Ukrainian interior ministry added to fears of a cover-up when it released video purportedly taken by police showing a truck carrying a Buk missile launcher with one of its four missiles apparently missing, rolling towards the Russian border at dawn . The video could not be independently verified.
Other material on rebel social media sites was being deleted, including pictures showing the alleged capture of Buk missile vehicles by rebels from a Ukrainian air base last month.

Bodies remained Friday at the site in eastern Ukraine. Armed rebels have prevented monitors from gaining full access to the area. Credit Maxim Zmeyev/Reuters        

A Nato intelligence specialist quoted by the military analysts Janes said the recordings "show that the Russian 'helpers' realise that they now have an international incident on their hands – and they probably also gave the order for separatists to erase all evidence – including those internet postings. It will be interesting to see if we ever find this Buk battery again or if someone now tries to dump it into a river."

In Washington, President Obama called for a full, impartial investigation and said the tragedy should cause people to "snap their heads together" and stop playing games in Ukraine.  Putting pressure on Moscow over Ukraine, Obama said: "The violence that's taking place there is facilitated in large part because of Russian support" ... he tried to channel international indignation toward Russia for what he called an “outrage of unspeakable proportions.” Mr. Obama said the episode should be “a wake-up call for Europe”

He singled out President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, accusing him of waging a proxy war that led to the tragedy. “He has the most control over that situation,” Mr. Obama said, “and so far, at least, he has not exercised it.”

President Barack Obama listens to a question about the downing of a Malaysian airliner in eastern Ukraine, on Friday 18 July 2014. Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP

... The US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, blamed a surface-to-air missile fired by rebels in eastern Ukraine and hinted that they might have had Russian technical help....
Defence analysts with Russian expertise shared Power's scepticism that Russia-backed rebel groups would have had the expertise to fire the missile and suggested it was more likely to have been Russian ground troops who specialise in air defence, seconded to help the rebels. At a briefing on Friday, Rear Adm. John Kirby, the top Pentagon spokesman, said it would have been difficult for separatists to fire the SA-11 without Russian help. “It strains credulity to think that it could be used by separatists without at least some measure of Russian support and technical assistance,” he said.

Admiral Kirby raised the possibility that the Russian military had transported the system into Ukraine and even fired it.

A man examined debris on Friday from the Malaysia Airlines crash a day earlier, in a field in Grabovo, Ukraine. Credit Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images        

Bob Latiff, a former US weapons developer for the air force and the CIA and now a professor at Notre Dame University, said he leaned towards a belief that it was a case of mistaken identity on the part of those who pressed the button.
"A radar return from an airplane like this would look very similar to that from a cargo plane, as was initially claimed by the separatists. If radar was all they were using, that is a shame," he said. "All airliners emit identification signals which identify the aircraft and provide other information like altitude and speed. They also operate on known communications frequencies. It doesn't sound like the separatists were using any of this.
"My guess is the system's radar saw a return from a big 'cargo' plane flying at 30,000 ft or so and either automatically fired, or some aggressive, itchy operator fired, not wanting to miss an opportunity." Latiff said that if they had only one radar, as Ukrainian officials suggest, it would have been pointed at the target..."there would normally [be]communications equipment [separate from the radar] to pick up signals showing the plane was non-military."

Igor Sutyagin, a Russian military specialist at the London-based Royal United Services Institute, said...getting evidence would be very difficult. He said: "A decision has been made on the Russian side to hide their tracks. It will be hard to find the battery.".
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The Russian Defense Ministry said at least five Ukrainian air defense systems were within range to bring down the plane. It said the flight path and crash site were within two areas where Ukraine was operating a long-range S-200 air defense system, and where three squadrons were deployed with SA-11 missile batteries.

Ukraine denied that any of its forces had been involved, and American officials said they believed that denial. “The Boeing was outside the zone of possible destruction by the antiaircraft forces of Ukraine,” Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told reporters.

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In their own public statements, European leaders expressed outrage but showed little eagerness to escalate the confrontation with Russia.  Prime Minister David Cameron, whose country had nine citizens on board, said “those responsible must be brought to account.” Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country had four passengers on board, said there were “many indications” that the Malaysian airliner had been “shot down” but declined to say whether she would support tougher sanctions.

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The heartbreaking news about Flight 17 keeps getting worse. Of the 295 people aboard the Malaysia Airlines 777 that crashed in Ukraine, several were bound for a major AIDS conference in Melbourne, Australia. Among the researchers, health-care workers, and activists who have been identified: Dr. Joep Lange, a pioneering Dutch scientist who worked on the virus for 30 years.

Read it at The Washington Post

 

JETLINER HIT BY MISSILE OVER UKRAINE.; 298 ON BOARD, ALL DEAD, RUSSIAN SEPARATISTS SUSPECTED



The fiery crash left debris strewn across several square miles in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, near the Russian border. Credit Dmitry Lovetsky/Associated Press        

N.Y. TIMES

A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 with 298 people aboard exploded, crashed and burned on a flowered wheat field Thursday in a part of eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russia separatists, blown out of the sky at 33,000 feet by what Ukrainian and American officials described as a Russian-made antiaircraft missile.

Ukraine accused the separatists of carrying out what it called a terrorist attack. American intelligence and military officials said the plane had been destroyed by a Russian SA-series missile, based on surveillance satellite data that showed the final trajectory and impact of the missile but not its point of origin.

There were strong indications that those responsible may have errantly downed what they had thought was a military aircraft only to discover, to their shock, that they had struck a civilian airliner. Everyone aboard was killed, their corpses littered among wreckage that smoldered late into the summer night.

 

The crash site of a Malaysia Airlines 777 carrying 298 people in the Donetsk region of Ukraine. Credit Dmitry Lovetsky/Associated Press        

 

Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, blamed Ukraine’s government for creating what he called conditions for insurgency in eastern Ukraine, where separatists have bragged about shooting down at least three Ukrainian military aircraft....Whatever the cause, the news of the crashed plane, with a passenger manifest that spanned at least nine countries, elevated the insurgency into a new international crisis. The day before, the United States had slapped new sanctions on Russia for its support of the pro-Kremlin insurgency, which has brought East-West relations to their lowest point in many years.

 

Stunned: Ukrainians inspect the wreckage of MH17 as coal miners, farmers and other volunteers help with the grisly task of clearing up the crash sites after the Malaysia Airlines jet was shot down by a surface-to-air missile over the east of the country

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2698068/

The government of Malaysia’s prime minister, Najib Razak, is still reeling from the unexplained disappearance of Flight 370 over the Indian Ocean in March.

Flight 17, had been bound for Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, from Amsterdam with 283 passengers, including three infants, and 15 crew members. Aviation officials said the plane had been traveling an approved and heavily trafficked route over eastern Ukraine. Flight 17 was flying on a route that had remained open and active at higher altitudes throughout the conflict in Ukraine. It had been closed up to 32,000 feet, but the plane was traveling 1,000 feet above that. Hours before the crash, Russia had announced its own airspace restrictions near eastern Ukraine, closing below 32,000 feet the route Flight 17 would have taken through Russia.

 

Surveying the damage: Firefighters walk among the smoking remains of flight MH17 at the crash site in eastern Ukraine. The white flags stuck into the ground indicate to rescue workers where victims lie

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2698068/

 

Adding to Ukrainian and Western suspicions that pro-Russia separatists were culpable, Ukraine’s intelligence agency, the State Security Service, known as the S.B.U., released audio from what it said were intercepted phone calls between separatist rebels and Russian military intelligence officers on Thursday. In the audio, the separatists appeared to acknowledge shooting down a civilian plane....

Myroslava Petsa, a Ukrainian journalist in Kiev, said that the people in the audio sounded shocked by what they had found in the wreckage.

By Thursday night, American intelligence analysts were increasingly focused on a theory that rebels had used a Russian-made SA-11 surface-to-air missile system to shoot down the aircraft and operated on their own fire-control radar, outside the checks and balances of the national Ukrainian air-defense network.

“Everything we have, and it is not much, says separatists,” a senior Pentagon official said. “That said, there’s still a lot of conjecture.”

 

What remains: Part of the Malaysian Airline plane lies damaged in a field after it was shot out of the sky on Thursday
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2698068

 

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko

For months, eastern Ukraine has been the scene of a violent pro-Russia separatist uprising....Despite the turmoil, the commercial airspace over eastern Ukraine is heavily trafficked and has remained open. Questions are likely to be raised in the coming days about why the traffic line, which is controlled by Ukraine and Russia, was not closed earlier.With the news of the crash on Thursday, Ukraine declared the eastern part of the country a no-fly zone.