Insurgents yield stricken plane’s bodies, 2 boxes
Monitors see uncollected remains, sifting of debris
HRABOVE, Ukraine — Bowing to international pressure Monday, pro-Russia separatists released a train packed with bodies and handed over the black boxes from the downed Malaysia Airlines plane, four days after it crashed in rebel-held eastern Ukraine.
With body parts decaying in sweltering heat and signs that evidence at the crash site was mishandled, anger in Western capitals has mounted toward the rebels and their allies in Moscow.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said it saw no evidence a missile was fired and denied involvement in the downing of Flight 17 — and suggested the Ukrainian military was at fault. President Vladimir Putin spoke out but showed no sign of abandoning the separatists as fighting flared anew near the site of the crash.
U.S. President Barack Obama accused the rebels of tampering with evidence and insulting victims’ families, warning of new sanctions. Europeans will consider their own sanctions today.
The families and friends of Dutch citizens blown out of the sky above Ukraine poured out their grief and anger Monday at a meeting with their monarch and political leaders.
“This terrible disaster has left a deep wound in our
society,” a somber King Willem-Alexander said after privately meeting the next of kin. “The scar will be visible and tangible for years to come.”
The Dutch have widely condemned the way the bodies of the victims have been treated in Ukraine and the fact that they have not yet been returned home.
“Bodies are just lying there for three days in the hot sun. There are people who have this on their conscience,” said Silene Fredriksz-Hoogzand, whose son, Bryce, and his girlfriend Daisy Oehlers died on their way to a vacation in Bali. “When I am in my bed at night, I see my son lying on the ground. … They have to come home, not only those two. Everybody has to come home.”
Victor Jammers, policy director of the organization Victim Support Netherlands, also was in the meeting. He said relatives were angry at being kept in the dark.
“The people I spoke to direct their anger of course to the Ukraine and to Russia, to give you an example, but there is also anger toward the Dutch government because relatives wanted more information than they got in the past days,” he said.
There is no formal day of national mourning yet for the victims, but across the country commemorations are being held.
International forensics experts finally gained access to the crash site Monday; the team stumbled across remains that had not yet been removed and inspected the perished passengers’ luggage.
In Torez, a rebel-held town 9 miles from the crash site, inspectors bowed heads and clasped hands before climbing aboard refrigerated train cars holding the collected bodies. Armed rebels surrounded them, while commuters boarded other trains nearby.
Late Monday, trucks arrived at the Torez station with plastic bags apparently filled with body parts, as well as piles of luggage. Ukrainian authorities said the total number of bodies recovered was 282. Dutch investigators demanded the separatists transfer the bodies immediately, and the rebels complied after several hours.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the train was heading for the rebel-held city of Donetsk, 30 miles west of the crash site, and then on to Kharkiv, site of a crisis center controlled by the Ukrainian government. He said Ukrainian authorities have agreed to let the bodies be transferred from there to the Netherlands for identification but gave no time frame.
Early today, the rebels handed over both black boxes from Flight 17 to Malaysian investigators in Donetsk. A rebel leader, Alexander Borodai, said the orange-colored flight recorders were being handed over to Malaysian officials on the condition that they would be delivered to experts at the International Civil Aviation Organization.
“I can see that the black box is intact even though a little bit damaged, but in a good condition,” said Col. Mohamad Sakri of the Malaysian National Security Council. He added that the No. 1 priority was for the bodies of the victims to be delivered to Amsterdam.
A team of international observers at the sprawling crash site described strange behavior by workers.
“When we were leaving, we observed workers there hacking into the fuselage with gas-powered equipment,” Michael Bociurkiw, spokesman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, told reporters in Donetsk.
He said there was no security perimeter Monday at one of the bigger debris fields, and monitors saw that one of the largest pieces of the plane “had somewhat been split or moved apart.”
In Washington, Obama asked, “What exactly are they trying to hide?”
“This is an insult to those who have lost loved ones. This is the kind of behavior that has no place in the community of nations,” he said.
He singled out Putin as responsible for the chaotic situation at the crash scene and said the Kremlin leader would be held accountable for ensuring that separatists open the site to international investigators.
“He has direct responsibility to compel them to cooperate with the investigation,” Obama said. “That is the least that they can do.”
On Sunday, the U.S. said there was “powerful” evidence that the rebels had shot down the plane with a Russian surface-to-air missile, including video of a rocket launcher, with one surface-to-air missile missing, being driven away from the likely launch site; imagery showing the firing; phone calls claiming credit for the missile strike; and phone recordings said to reveal a cover-up at the crash site.
Russian Defense Ministry officials insisted Russia had not given the rebels any surface-to-air missiles and said they have no evidence that any missiles were launched. They also said images that purported to show a surfaceto-air missile system being driven toward Russia after the downing of the plane were fake, Interfax reported.
The Russian Defense Ministry offered its own evidence Monday, showing photos it said proved that Ukrainian surface-to-air systems were operating in the area before the crash — nine times on the day the plane was brought down.
Russian officials also said they had evidence a Ukrainian Su-25 fighter jet had flown within 2 to 3 miles of the Malaysia Airlines jet.
“[The plane] is armed with air-to-air R-60 rockets, which can hit a target from a distance of up to [7 miles] and guaranteed within [3 miles],” said the chief of Russia’s general staff, Lt. Gen. Andrei Kartopolov.
The Defense Ministry also said that a U.S. satellite was flying over eastern Ukraine at the time of the crash, Interfax reported, and it asked Washington to release the satellite imagery.
Putin accused others of exploiting the downing of the plane for “mercenary objectives.” He said Kiev authorities had reignited the fighting after a unilateral cease-fire expired without progress on peace talks.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, in an interview with CNN, called on the U.S. Congress to designate as terrorist organizations the separatist groups in eastern Ukraine. He also said that if economic sanctions against Russia fail, Ukraine may seek new status as a special non-NATO ally of the United States.
Obama, who had imposed a new, tougher round of sanctions on Russia the day before the plane was taken down, held out the prospect of going further now.
“If Russia continues to violate Ukraine’s sovereignty and to back these separatists,” he said, then “Russia will only further isolate itself from the international community, and the costs for Russia’s behavior will only continue to increase.”
Republicans in Washington said Obama needs to do more — not just to bring the Europeans along but unilaterally if necessary. Among other suggestions they have made in recent days were to arm and provide more intelligence and training to Ukraine’s security forces, deploy more U.S. military units in Poland, reconstitute missile defense in Eastern Europe, bar Aeroflot flights from U.S. airports, and lobby to cancel or boycott the World Cup to be held in Russia in 2018.
At the United Nations, the Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution Monday demanding international access to the crash site and an end to military activities in the area.
The resolution calls for a “full, thorough and independent international investigation.” It calls for pro-Russia separatists to allow access to the site of the crash. And it demands that armed groups who control the crash site do not disturb debris, belongings or victims’ remains.
All 15 council members voted in favor of the Australia-proposed measure, which was co-sponsored by nine other countries that lost citizens in the crash and after intense pressure on a reluctant Russia to support the measure.
The vote came after a weekend of negotiations to overcome Russian objections to the text, including a phone conversation between Putin and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
Russia had pushed for the resolution to state that the International Civil Aviation Organization — rather than Ukrainian authorities — take the lead in the investigation. The final resolution fell short of that demand, but in an effort to assuage veto-wielding Russia, it included wording changes that played up the role of the U.N. agency.
Russia’s ambassador to the U.N., Vitaly Churkin, said he was satisfied that the resolution gives the International Civil Aviation Organization a prominent role in the investigation, and he welcomed the announcement that the Netherlands would also take a lead role.
“We could not simply allow the Security Council to endorse a Ukrainian-led investigation because we have no trust in their intention to conduct a truly objective investigation,” Churkin told reporters after the vote.
As the experts began their work, heavy fighting, including mortar fire, was underway between pro-Russia separatists and the Ukrainian military in Donetsk. A spokesman for the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic, Sergei Vladimirovich, said the government forces had begun pushing into the city from the northwest.