A Malaysian plane has been shot down in the Ukraine.

[WeAreEternal]

The flight mh17 from Amsterdam to kuala lumpor with 295 people on board, it was a boing 777.
It was shot down with a buk ground to air missile.
They say there are no survivors.

It's awful.

Meh, I think it was the Russians.

When it is confirmed, I think we should look at squeezing our oligarchs.

'I think it was the Russians.'

It may well be. We need to wait until the investigation.

Hawk is a standard political term used in al newspapers

"The 51-year old former journalist used to be known as a right-wing Russia hawk with a loose mouth.

He has bent over backwards to improve his image. But he still advocates EU expansion into Russia’s neighbourhood and a tough reaction to Russia’s attack on Ukraine.

Meanwhile, his new reputation for “restraint” took a hit over the weekend.

Polish magazine Wprost published part of his private conversation in a Warsaw restaurant in January in which he says Poland’s security co-operation with the US is “worthless … bullshit”.

“It will lead to conflict with Germany, with Russia, and we’ll think everything is fine because we gave the Americans a blow job.”

It remains to be seen how the leak will affect his standing in EU circles."

euobserver.com/foreign/124695

You do appear overly fond of the term 'Hawk' though.

I hate all the over dramatising - as if it needs to be.

I find it rather sickening that a tragedy like this is being exploited by a tin foil peddler for further their own political agenda.

Its very simple. Has Putin denied all involvement? The answer is he hasn't claimed OR denied responsibility. STILL.

Why is that? Its important.

This is the dictionary definition of hawk

"a person who advocates an aggressive or warlike policy, especially in foreign affairs."

I prefer to use short words like hawk to sum up the essence of an aggressive, warlike policy than to write out a whole string of words to say the same thing only less efficiently.

What an awful tragedy - where might this end? Will the UN and world go to war over what may be the most awful cock-up (please, I am not minimising the tragedy, but the intent on a civilian aircraft).

Looking at the images I am amazed at how many large pieces of identifiable plane there are. How many of the victims look largely untouched. I thought if there was a missile attack that everything, mechanical or human, would be very badly damaged, virtually unidentifiable.

Instead, the whole bodies, whole parts of plane, make it more horrific with the thought that it was not, perhaps instant for all.

Lavrov denied Russian involvement. I don't have his quote to hand.

Cormoran - it would depend on where the missile struck. There would be parts of the plane where it would be the case that very little unidentifiable, but further from the point of impact, things would survive.

Things are generally only destroyed by fire/explosion to that level of destruction. The outward force of the impact, would blow the plane apart rather than cause a lot of it to burn.

Has Putin denied all involvement? The answer is he hasn't claimed OR denied responsibility. STILL.

This is mainly what leads me to think it was fired by the Russian army after all. But I also think it was a mistake, the Ukranian cargo plane was the intended target. Putin isn't the world's best at holding his hands up, even to a tragic error by a fuckwit soldier, so he's trying to figure out if there's any helpful spin he can put on it without starting the final war.

'Will the UN and world go to war over what may be the most awful cock-up (please, I am not minimising the tragedy, but the intent on a civilian aircraft).'

No. If you listen to Huilary's TV interview, you can see that the States wants 3 main things to be done now

EU countries to impose tougher sanctions on Russia
More help for Ukrainian government
EU countries to lessen dependency on Russian oil and gas

But as Ron Paul says

"The United States instituted sanctions against Russia Tuesday aimed at Russia's financial institutions and defense sector, which Paul considers "acts of war."

"They want to put on these sanctions, which are actually acts of war and the consequence is usually economic blowback," he said.

Paul says that sanctions are "seductive," but that in reality it "is just war talk, war mongering."

"If we get into a fight with a country and war breaks out, the very first thing we do is put on sanctions and blockade them and try to keep resources out of their country," he said.

"So if you start with that, I consider this an act of war. It's not quite like shooting at each other," the Texas Republican added."

www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Ron-Paul-Putin-Malaysian-flight/2014/07/18/id/583590#ixzz37wFgl5ve

There will not be a shooting war, at least yet, but we are heading for much more strained relations with Russia and the US wanst the EU to change its policy towards Russia.

It all now depends on Merkel and what she does.

Yes cormoran thats what I'm finding quite disturbing as well. Would the passengers have lost consciousness before they hit the ground? I'm assuming they must; it's too horrifying to think otherwise

Why, as the Russian separatists have no aircraft, have Ukraine moved at least two BUKs near Donetsk?

Also, to go off topic, why is nobody reporting on Ukraine shelling Lugansk killing more than 40 people? Oh I know, it's not in the US interests.

Oh and PJ, before you condemn me as being a Putin apologist I am not. I deplore his actions almost as much as I do the actions of the corporate led us Government. And the US owned Ukraine government.

Russia denied they were moving troops into Crimea. That was a blatant lie too. Russia isn't interested in the truth.

I hope this is a wake up call that heralds the end of Putin and his disrespect for the rule of law, violence and evil use of propaganda.

DoctorTwo - Quite!

DoctorTwo - Ah I misunderstood you. Are you by any chance from Russia Today?

Thank you for replying. It makes sense that the further they were sitting from impact, the lesser the damage. But even the fall alone, I would have thought ... Well, in fact, I think I would rather not think on about it at all.

GarlicJulyKit, Putin isn't in a position where he CAN admit responsibility.

Either, Russian involvement goes right back to the Kremlin. In which case, he'd straight away be on very dodgy ground as he has been caught red handed carrying out military operations on foreign soil. Russia would automatically be liable for all compensation. And it would give the rest of the world very legitimate cause to squeeze Russia as a result, and even China couldn't really question it or oppose such demands because there had been an admission of guilt.

Or if it is a rough Russian unit, it shows he isn't in full control of the army or its equipment and personal, which makes him incredibly weak domestically. This is counter to what the Russian public demand, and makes it more likely for areas of Russia with ambitions of independence to take action.

Equally if he directly denies involvement he looks cowardly too, to a number of important figures and groups within Russia.

What anyone else in Russia says is virtually unimportant due to the structure of Putin's power and Tsarist ambitions.

RedToothBrush, the alternative is that the pressure that Putin will be under from EU and US leaders might force him to blame the rebels and wash his hands of them. The US wants him to cut all ties with the rebels.

He may have to do that. But if he does that then he will be unpopular with Russian nationalists. But he may be in a strong enough position to withstand that.

DoctorTwo "Why, as the Russian separatists have no aircraft, have Ukraine moved at least two BUKs near Donetsk?"

Because the Russians do?

So far, it has been several Ukrainian aircraft that have been shot down by the pro-Russians and/or their sponsors.

Ukraine is putting the blame on Russia directly, not on the separatists whom the Ukrainian Prime Minister describes as "drunken gorillas"

"Driving home its assertion that the Boeing 777 was hit by a Russian SA-11 radar-guided missile, Ukraine's Western-backed government said it had "compelling evidence" the battery was not just brought in from Russia but manned by three Russian citizens who had now taken the truck-mounted system back over the border.

The prime minister, denying Russian suggestions that Kiev's forces had fired a missile, said only a "very professional" crew could have brought down the speeding jetliner from 33,000 feet - not "drunken gorillas" among the ill-trained insurgents who want the Russian-speaking east to be annexed by Moscow."

www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/19/us-ukraine-crisis-airplane-idUSKBN0FO04620140719

That is totally what I'm guessing has happened, Red. But if he weren't so proud & bloody-minded, he could admit it, as both US and UK military have in the past, among others. You say you've punished the soldier what dunnit, announce the army's going to be trained better, and do something to compensate the victims' families. That his style precludes any of this may be something of a tragedy.

With the area under the control of the armed pro-Russians, I wonder where have the flight recorders gone?

Why, as the Russian separatists have no aircraft, have Ukraine moved at least two BUKs near Donetsk?

Assuming it's true that Ukraine have BUKs in place, can you possibly imagine why they might be worried about air attack coming from a source other than the Russian separatists in the circumstance of a very recent Russian invasion of Crimea and that Russians are attempting to create a civil war in Ukraine?

the humanity being shown by other folk on the ground who are trying to ensure the deceased are respected.

This. I just wanted to hold onto this for a moment.

There's a photo on the BBC site where local people have heaped flowers and a note on a piece of the aircraft.