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Ukraine Fighting Stalls Deployment of Dutch Police to Plane Crash Site Ukraine Fighting Stalls Deployment of Dutch Police to Plane Crash Site
(about 3 hours later)
KHARKIV, Ukraine — Restarting a stalled effort to recover the last bodies from the crash site of a Malaysian airliner shot down by a surface-to-air missile, around 30 unarmed Dutch police officers left this eastern Ukrainian city early Sunday for the debris-strewn site after the Malaysian government struck a deal with pro-Russia rebels over access to the area. ZUHRES, Ukraine — Just hours after the Malaysian government reached an agreement with Ukrainian separatists on Sunday over access to the crash site of a Malaysian airliner shot down in rebel territory, the Ukrainian military launched an operation to recapture the debris fields, again stalling international efforts to secure the site.
After traveling by road to Donetsk, a rebel stronghold 190 miles south of Kharkiv, however, the Dutch team put off trying to reach the crash site because of fighting in the area, a spokeswoman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said. The heavy fighting threatened to torpedo hopes of a breakthrough and cause yet more delays in collecting evidence and retrieving the remaining bodies from the crash. Ukrainian security officials said they needed control over the site to prevent separatists from destroying clues to the airliner’s downing.
Small groups of foreign police and forensic experts have managed to reach the area where the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 crashed on July 17 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, but efforts to secure the site with larger contingents have repeatedly fallen through. By Sunday evening, the Ukrainian advance had blocked a key road leading from the provincial capital, Donetsk, to the airplane debris northeast of Shakhtyorsk, but it remained unclear whether government troops were in control of all or part of the approximately 14 square miles of debris fields.
The prospects for a more robust foreign presence improved on Sunday when Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia reached an agreement with a leader of the rebels, Alexander Borodai, “to allow a deployment of international police personnel to enter the crash site,” Mr. Najib’s office said in an email. Videos posted online appeared to show Ukrainian armored vehicles near the site, and reporters who visited earlier Sunday said insurgents were nowhere to be seen.
But heavy fighting threatened to torpedo hopes of a breakthrough and cause yet more delays before the last bodies could be retrieved and evidence collected. The combat spread out along the road in a fluid and chaotic scene, leaving it wholly unclear who controlled what. Fragments of rockets lay on the sunbaked macadam, and columns of black smoke rose in many spots on the horizon.
Australia said Sunday that it was also sending unarmed police officers to the crash site as part of an international push to prevent any further meddling with human remains and evidence scattered over rebel-controlled farmland. One separatist commander at a checkpoint outside Shakhtyorsk, about 10 miles from the crash site, said the Ukrainians had retaken the area, and a rebel leader, Alexander Borodai, confirmed that government troops were advancing.
Debris from the crash is scattered over a rural area dotted with wheat and sunflower fields, and the site remains unguarded despite growing reports of tampering with the plane wreckage and passenger items there. Monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe reported after a visit to the site on Friday that parts of the jet’s wreckage had been moved and that pieces of hand luggage had been unzipped and left empty. “The attempts to clear militia from the crash site irrefutably show Kiev is trying to destroy evidence,” he told reporters in Donetsk. His claim was apparently intended to counter earlier allegations that the rebels had been tampering with evidence to hide their own role in the downing of the plane.
“Our objective is to get in, to get cracking and to get out — that’s our objective,” Prime Minister Tony Abbott of Australia told a news conference in Canberra, the capital. Australia had considered allowing some of its men to carry weapons, but Mr. Abbott indicated that he had decided against that. Separatists seemed to be in a state of alarm, driving in convoys of buses and armored vehicles out of Donetsk toward the fighting. They controlled the road as far as the town of Zuhres. A monitoring mission by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe that had visited the site daily was unable to reach the area on Sunday.
“This is a risky mission, no doubt about that, but all the professional advice I have is that the safest way to conduct it is unarmed as part of a police-led humanitarian mission,” he said. The Malaysian jetliner, a Boeing 777-200, was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and all 298 people aboard Flight 17 were killed. Ukrainian and American officials say the plane was shot down by a Russian-made surface-to-air missile fired by the rebels. Russia and the rebels have denied any involvement and blame Ukraine.
While most of the bodies of the 298 victims of the crash have been recovered and flown to the Netherlands for identification, forensic investigators have not been able to reach the area in sufficient numbers to ensure that all the bodies have been found. They also want to collect debris that could provide evidence of who brought the plane down. The Netherlands, whose citizens accounted for around two-thirds of the crash victims, is leading an international effort to get to the bottom of what happened to Flight 17. Small groups of foreign police officers and forensic experts have managed to reach the crash site, but efforts to secure it with larger contingents have repeatedly fallen through.
Ukrainian and American officials say the Boeing 777 was shot down by a Russian-made missile fired by the rebels. Russia and the rebels have denied any involvement and blame Ukraine. The longer the site remains unguarded, the smaller the chances of recovering evidence that could clarify who shot down the plane. Earlier Sunday, the prospects for a more robust foreign presence seemed to have improved when the office of Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia announced in an email that he had reached an agreement with Mr. Borodai “to allow a deployment of international police personnel to enter the crash site.”
Mr. Abbott said that 49 foreign police officers and experts, including 11 Australians, would reach the site Sunday and that “considerably more” would follow in coming days. Clashes in the area between rebels and Ukrainian forces, however, risked scuppering this plan. After the announcement, around 30 unarmed Dutch police officers left the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv intending to reach the debris-strewn fields. But after traveling by road to Donetsk, the Dutch team put off trying to go farther because of fighting, a spokeswoman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said.
Heavy fighting broke out around midday on Sunday near the crash site and the nearby town of Torez, where an air-raid siren sounded continually and artillery explosions to the north were heard. Residents scrambled to move into basements. Reporters in Torez said rebels seemed in a state of alarm, as they drove cars in the streets at high speeds. The Dutch police deployment on Sunday, ordered overnight by the Ministry of Security and Justice in The Hague, reversed an earlier decision by the head of a Dutch police mission in Kharkiv. He had intended to delay movement toward the crash site until a vote on Thursday by the Ukrainian Parliament in Kiev that he said would provide a “legal basis” for the deployment of foreign police officers.
Earlier on Sunday, local separatist commanders told reporters at the site that they could no longer guarantee the safety of the 14 square miles or so of debris fields, as the Ukrainian military was advancing toward the area. The separatists closed the road between Donetsk and Torez. While the bodies of most victims have been recovered and flown to the Netherlands for identification, forensic investigators have not been able to reach the area in sufficient numbers to ensure that all the bodies have been found. They also want to collect debris that could provide evidence of who had brought the plane down. The Netherlands, whose citizens accounted for around two-thirds of the crash victims, is leading an international effort to get to the bottom of what happened to Flight 17.
The area where Flight 17 came down is tactically important for the Ukrainian military, which is attempting to close access to the provincial capital, Donetsk, from the east, lest separatists in the city be resupplied and reinforced from the direction of the Russian border. The area is tactically important for the Ukrainian military, which is trying to close access to Donetsk from the east, lest separatists in the city be resupplied and reinforced from the direction of the Russian border.
Foreign access to the site has been hampered by a host of problems from the start, with heavily armed rebels initially restricting the movements of foreign experts. Ukraine then asserted that its Parliament needed to endorse operations by the police from the Netherlands and elsewhere. Clashes flared in half a dozen towns east of Donetsk on Sunday. There was also fighting to the north, with an artillery strike in the town of Horlivka reportedly killing at least 13 civilians.
The Dutch police deployment on Sunday, ordered overnight by the Ministry of Security and Justice in The Hague, reversed a decision by the head of a Dutch police mission in Kharkiv to delay movement toward the crash site until a vote on Thursday by the Ukrainian Parliament in Kiev, the capital. The longer the crash site remains unguarded, the smaller the chances of recovering evidence. Responding to growing reports that the wreckage and passenger items had been tampered with, Australia said Sunday that it was sending unarmed police officers to the crash site to prevent any further meddling. Australia lost dozens of citizens on Flight 17.
The Ukrainian government, which considers the crash area an inviolable part of its territory, has been loath to see foreign governments negotiate with pro-Russia separatist leaders based in Donetsk, the capital of a self-declared republic that no foreign state, including Russia, has recognized. Debris is spread over a rural area dotted with wheat and sunflower fields. Monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe reported after a visit to the site on Friday that parts of the jet’s wreckage had been moved and that pieces of hand luggage had been unzipped and left empty.
Malaysia has been particularly active in reaching out to the rebel leadership. It brokered a deal last week under which the rebels handed over the plane’s data and voice recorders, which they had seized at the crash site. On Sunday, the Malaysian government said pro-Russia rebels had agreed to allow the Australian, Dutch and Malaysian police to guard investigators once they gained access to the area. “Our objective is to get in, to get cracking and to get out — that’s our objective,” Prime Minister Tony Abbott of Australia said at a news conference in Canberra, the capital. Australia had considered allowing some of its officers to carry weapons, but Mr. Abbott said he had decided against that.
“Three grieving nations have formed a coalition to secure the site,” Mr. Najib said in an email. “Through our joint deployment of police personnel, the Netherlands, Australia and Malaysia will work together to achieve justice for the victims.” “This is a risky mission, no doubt about that,” he said, “but all the professional advice I have is that the safest way to conduct it is unarmed as part of a police-led humanitarian mission.”
The announcement by Mr. Najib could clear away one of the obstacles that has hindered foreign police officers from guarding and searching the area where Flight 17 fell, but the heavy fighting that broke out Sunday threatened yet more delays. Foreign access to the site has been hampered by a host of problems from the start, with heavily armed rebels initially restricting the movements of foreign experts. In Kiev, Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said the Ukrainian troops intended to “liberate” the crash site to secure evidence.
“I am deeply concerned that international investigators have been unable to properly deploy to the crash site because of the volatile security situation,” Mr. Najib said. “It is imperative that we deploy a full team of investigators to ensure that all the human remains are removed from the site, identified and repatriated.” The Ukrainian government has been loath to see foreign governments negotiate with the pro-Russia separatist leaders based in Donetsk, the capital of a self-declared republic that no foreign state, including Russia, has recognized. Malaysia has been particularly active in reaching out to the rebel leadership. It brokered a deal last week under which the rebels handed over the plane’s data and voice recorders, which they had seized at the crash site.
The deal announced on Sunday would have allowed Malaysian, Australian and Dutch police officers onto the site. If successful, the Ukrainian military operation will end the need for any foreign negotiations with the rebels.