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.

book I agree! I was typing something similar. There is a lot of stirring in the media. More important is returning the deceased to their loved ones and determining who and how and why.

Russian sources have repeatedly alleged that there are no obstructions and investigators are dragging their heels and that's why they haven't turned up at the crash site in force.

another view clearly and succinctly expressed

'I heard the former UK Ambassador to Russia say that interfering with the crash evidence would make the final report less clear-cut, enabling one side to dismiss it.'

My guess is that Yats hasn't really got strong evidence and that is why he is prone to over exaggeration such as the rebels are in a "war against the world". The Russian on Radio 4 said today that international inspectors can go to the site but they haven't come. Only the Ukrainian government authorities and the OSCE, whom we have seen on loop being escorted from the site, have come.

So I think that Yats will soon say that the reason he hasn't got definitive evidence is because the international experts couldn't get there before the "drunken gorillas" had tampered with the evidence.

But I don't think Angela Merkel will think that that justifies giving Putin his "last chance".

since some of the evidence lies in fields under the control of the pro-Russians and their sponsors, who control access with machine guns, it is certain that the Ukrainian government only have such evidence as they have been permitted to receive, for example from US satellite recordings.

"The Russian on Radio 4 said today that international inspectors can go to the site but they haven't come"
In view of the facts mentioned in my previous post, this is a shameful slur propagated by the pro-Russian lobby.

Infowars report that an 'intelligence insider' says that US 'intelligence' has satellite photos showing who shot the plane down.

The Independent has an article wondering why a Ukrainian SU25 was following MH17.

Before any blame is cast we need to explore every piece of evidence.

I don't like Putin. I don't like Poroshenko. I don't like that the US spent over $5Bn destabilising Ukraine, causing the current unrest.

Ukrainian government official on Newsnight just now says that he needs "more intelligence" from the West. I am not surprised because my guess is that he doesn't have sufficient to convince Merkel, but he has enough to convince some of our other leaders.

Lebedev on Newsnight now says that the casualties in Ukraine are now in the thousands, but of course we have never been told that because Sky and their team, and the BBC, who were camped out permanently in the Maidan when the EU backed the coup against an elected President don't seem to have reported much on all the refugees of women and children escaping to Russia and all the bombings and shellings in the months that the Ukrainian government and Right Sector have been trying to defeat the "drunken gorillas".

PigletJohn it may be relevant that some of the pieces of debris were moved. As a lay person I would probably consider that was important.

However, a Harvard lecturer (ex- US military) and a Russian military expert said that the relevant points would be: size of the scatter field (this will have been clearly established from satellite imagery ); the nature of the damage to the aircraft (think holes or straight gashes) and, of course, any signs of catastrophic internal failure revealed by the black boxes.

I am deeply cynical of any statements released by the US, Russian and Ukrainian politicians. Their main agendas are not finding the truth for the families involved but using the situation to further their own political causes.

the points you mention will help determine if the plane was shot down by a missile, or crashed for some other reason. However I don't think that is under dispute.

Among the debris there is likely to be scraps of the missile, some of which might help to identify it.

Quite possibly the non-international search teams combing the fields on behalf of the pro-Russians and their allies will find these before anyone else, and deal with them according to instructions from their leaders.

That's interesting, PigletJohn the report I read from US sources said they scraps wouldn't be much help as the Ukrainian and Russian governments use the same missile systems.

Have you a link to the article which says the missile scraps would be different? TIA

BREAKING NEWS: REBELS HAND BLACK BOXES TO MALAYSIANS

All to be confirmed, but this is good news if true. BBC now.

Tomorrow's headlines

Independent headline
"France and Germany accused of going soft on Putin"

i headline "Britain accuses Europe of going soft on Moscow"

Daily teegraph headline
"It's time to punish Pitin, says PM"

The Times headline
"Stop selling warships to Russia, PM tells France"

Daiy Mail headline
"Young priced out of a home"

Maybe the Daily Mail has given up and thinks that this might end up another 26-2 like the Juncker debacle.

Yats is going to get madder and madder the more Europe doesn't go along and the rhetoric will get bolder and bolder, the demand will grow louder and louder and faces will get redder and redder.

France24 is reporting that the flight recorders have been handed to Malaysian authorities. BBC Breakfast reports the opposite. What would you expect from the propoganda wing of the Tory party...

Sky had a Romanian reporter who witnessed the handover of the black boxes, saw the signing of documents and said that the Malaysian authorities said that the black boxes were in "good condition", which Yats will probably be miffed about.

Radio 4 says that the black boxes have been handed over. Are you sure that BBC Breakfast said that? I would expect that type of talk from Yats, but not the BBC.

The consensus is very much that it was shot down by a missile (my guess is that there are records showing it in flight, because they also say with confidence that it was fired from disputed territory.

There seems to be agreement it was an old Sov one (which could have been owned by either country (and probably a number of others, post break up), but this is not confirmed, and cannot be unless there is sufficient forensic evidence from the crash site.

We do not yet know who fired it.

Russia is saying nothing publicly, but it does appear that they have pressured the separatists (for I don't see who else could have) to clear and hand over the bodies, to have a ceasefire for 6 miles around the site and to hand over the black boxes (BTW, I have BBC Breakfast on, and handing over the boxes is their top story).

Fighting is continuing elsewhere. Who is pressuring the Ukrainians to ceasefire?

'Who is pressuring the Ukrainians to ceasefire?'

Putin and Merkel have called for a ceasefire. I am not sure about Cameron. I know that he has called for Germany and France to get tougher and he has said it is time to punish Putin, but whether he has asked Yats if he could agree a ceasefire, I am unclear about.

My guess is that Yats will not declare a ceasefire at all because I heard a reporter say that fighting in Donetsk will hinder the investigators trying to do their work.

"France24 is reporting that the flight recorders have been handed to Malaysian authorities. BBC Breakfast reports the opposite. What would you expect from the propoganda wing of the Tory party..."

DoctorTwo, the BBC has been reporting since last night that the black boxes have been handed to the Malaysians. See my post at 23:38:05 yesterday.

I hope there was some slip of the tongue by a Breakfast presenter which explains your statement above, because the person guilty of fact-free, agenda-driven propaganda here is you.

claig Tue 22-Jul-14 07:33:56
... the Malaysian authorities said that the black boxes were in "good condition", which Yats will probably be miffed about

what a very strange thing to say.

As Reuters reported the flight recorders being found last Thursday, why would you have hoped that the casings looked damaged?

Agree, AuntieStella, this probably means the Russians are applying pressure, which may mean they're disowning the rebels (to whatever extent they ever owned them).

Which is good news for getting the investigation under way, and potentially good news for the wider situation if it turns down the heat in the region.

claig Tue 22-Jul-14 08:12:04
"My guess is that Yats will not declare a ceasefire at all because I heard a reporter say that fighting in Donetsk will hinder the investigators trying to do their work."

Another strange thing to say.
Currently it is the pro-Russians who are restricting access and hindering the investigation, as it has been from the beginning, carrying machine-guns and fending off investigators.

Pro-Russian rebels have pledged to allow international investigators to access the crash site, but actions speak louder than words.

Meanwhile, I can understand why Russia would wish to distance themselves from the downing of this plane and the escalation of violence. Russia's spokesmen continue to claim that Russia has not provided heavy weapons, such as tanks and missiles, to their pro-Russian clients in Eastern Ukraine.

However satellite images show the reverse.

'Currently it is the pro-Russians who are restricting access and hindering the investigation'

Have you been reading the Sun?

Did you not see Matt Frei of Channel 4 News yesterday at the site of the crash being shown round by farmers and villagers? Matt actually said what everyone is thinking, but none of our leaders, the Sun or Yats says,

if we are able to visit the site, then one wonders why the international investogators can't

I think the answer may lie with a post that BookABooSue posted

"It may be worth noting that the rebels said they couldn't move the bodies until the necessary international permissions had been given. They knew it reflected badly on them (because of the extremely biased reporting) but had to wait for authorisation. They have also said that they have guaranteed safe passage to international investigators but the Ukrainian government in Kiev is saying they can't guarantee safe passage and hence why they have not arrived at the site yet ."

Don't expect Yats to guarantee safe passage, don't expect Yats to declare a ceasefire, don't even expect some of our leaders to ask Yats to declare a ceasefire, apart from Putin and Merkel.

Yats will then blame the "drunken gorillas" for impeding investigations and he will say that that is why he does not have the evidence to convince Merkel that the rebels are in a "war against the world".

Read the comments of many posters in Daily Mail articles. Not all, because of course many people believe the Sun. Many people probably believe the Daily Mail when it shows a picture of a rebel holding a ring and asks

"Is this the moment a rebel stole plane victim's ring?"

but there are many more who don't believe it. And it is in a time of such crisis or in a time when 500 Palestinians have been killed and thousands are wounded that many of the public see through the lies and see how they are misled and see what their leaders say and do.

"Have you been reading the Sun?"

No.

Nor the Mail.

I can understand why you might not like to read the link I posted, which says, inter alia:

"Pro-Russian rebels have pledged to allow international investigators to access the crash site near the village of Grabove through a so-called humanitarian corridor.

However, monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) say they have been given only limited access to the site, with the rebels keeping them away from the wreckage."

Perhaps you have not seen the photos of armed pro-Russians blocking the path of the investigators.