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THE REMAINS OF the last victims of flight MH17 may never be recovered from the Ukrainian battlefield where their plane was shot down four months ago, the Dutch foreign minister said today, as fighting rumbled on in the east of the country.
Foreign Minister Bert Koenders made the grim assessment in the city of Kharkiv, where he attended a memorial service for five more sets of human remains collected from the site of the disaster and flown to The Netherlands.
“We cannot say at this moment in any certain way … at what moment and even if we can recover the last nine” victims, he said.
Ukraine and the West blame Russian-backed separatist fighters for the catastrophe, while Moscow pointed the finger at Kiev, in an incident that galvanised international shock over the chaos in a country bordering the European Union.
Virginia Mayo ... Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders
Virginia Mayo ... Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders
- More bloodshed -
Ukraine reported more bloody fighting overnight, with three soldiers killed, as Moscow denied claims it had sent tanks across the border.
Ukraine’s military said one paratrooper was shot dead by a sniper in Donetsk international airport, where government forces are defending a pocket of territory near the biggest rebel-held city. Fifteen other soldiers were wounded in shelling of government positions around the conflict zone, a statement said.
The deadly fighting rumbled on in the industrial east despite a two-month old ceasefire deal that has halted significant offensives, but failed to stop shelling at strategic flashpoints.
Donetsk’s city hall said two civilians were wounded by shrapnel as the north of the city was rocked by explosions overnight.
A brief morning calm ended with the sound of frequent artillery explosions near the airport, an AFP journalist said.
Two tanks and two armoured fighting vehicles could be seen on the outskirts of the city, while rebels were digging trenches.
“The shooting is getting closer and closer, with heavier weapons. Yesterday I almost jumped out of my bed the bombardments felt so close,” said Lyudmila, deputy director at a local school.
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- Claim of tanks -
Russia, which annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region in March and lends close political and humanitarian support to the separatist areas in the east, denied the latest Ukrainian allegation that it was dispatching regular troops to join the fighting.
Ukraine’s military made headlines around the world yesterday with the claim that columns of hardware, including 32 tanks, had poured across the border which is under the control of Russia and the pro-Russian rebels.
AP / Press Association Images
AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images
Unmarked military vehicles parked on a road outside the separatist rebel-held eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne, 80 km from Donetsk.
However, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov laughed off the allegation after US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said she had no “independent confirmation” of the report.
“If Psaki doesn’t have it, I don’t,” Lavrov told journalists with a chuckle in Beijing, where he met his US counterpart John Kerry ahead of an APEC summit.
Psaki said that heavy Russian weaponry had been seen on Thursday at a rail yard about 25 km inside its border. And journalists have on numerous occasions met Russian soldiers in Ukraine or seen long columns of heavy artillery and troop transports on roads.
However, both the Ukrainian and separatist spokesmen have frequently issued dramatic claims about the war without providing evidence.
- Diplomatic activity -
The conflict has sent relations between Western backers of Ukraine and Russia to their lowest level since the Cold War.
Russia’s economy is suffering from European Union and US sanctions imposed in response to Moscow’s support for the separatists. With Russia welcoming last week’s rebel elections, which were billed as boosting the separatists’ claim to independence, new sanctions could be coming.
A flurry of diplomatic activity is approaching, with the APEC summit in China and a Group of 20 summit in Australia next week, where President Vladimir Putin will have the chance to put his case before world leaders.
Speaking in Beijing, Lavrov appeared to soften Russia’s position, saying that US involvement in attempts to resolve the crisis would be a “step in the right direction”.
“Our positions on what is happening in Ukraine do not correspond with the United States, but if Washington is interested in contributing to the reconciliation of the situation and creating dialogue between Kiev and the rebel leadership…, I think that would be a step in the right direction,” the Russian foreign minister said in comments shown on Russian state television.
The United States should discourage “hot heads” in the Ukrainian government from resuming a full-scale conflict with the pro-Russian separatists, Lavrov added.
But in comments marking the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, US President Barack Obama said, “as Russia’s actions against Ukraine remind us, we have more work to do to fully realise our shared vision of a Europe that is whole, free and at peace.”
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It should be noted that that MH-370 was announced missing in the United States on March 7 and MH-17 was announced crashed on July 17, a span of 132 days. 132 = 4×33. March 7 was also the 66th day of the year.
Yes Ablitive, so 18 multiplied by 3 liters of goat’s milk and divided by Monday gives you 1.39. You can explain any stupid thing. More seriousness please-people were killed…
It’s actually 778 days later, Frank. 777 days in between, not *later*. That would be like me saying the 28th of a month comes two days later than the 25th! It doesn’t (3 days), whether you choose to include the starting date, or just choose to include the end date. Little details, Frank… little details matter. You can make numerics fit any event you like by how you manipulate the numers.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the same missing Malaysia Airlines plane that went missing and they couldn’t find, then later shot down and blamed on the Russians to drum up anti Russian sentiment in Europe. Think about it, what would the Russians / Crimean Russian sympathisers have to gain from shooting down this plane? It doesn’t add up, very strange altogether.
@Benito. Maybe we’re meant to think that “they” could conspire to do something elaborate like that and yet couldn’t conspire to conjure up some fake WMDs in Iraq to justify the Iraq invasion. You conspiracy nuts tie yourselves in knots
You have me all summed up Stephen, what an insightful and perceptive human being you must be, you read one comment and denounce me as a “conspiracy nut”, instead of actually trying to present any plausible argument to counter my point.
No, no Stephen, you’re right, unless I believe everything the US government and the mainstream media tell me, without so much as a question, I must be a conspiracy nut! You bloody cretin!
Yeah Stephen, and your president says the greatest threats to civilisation on the planet are Ebola, ISIS and Russia. The conspiracy nuts have gone full moron.
No Benito…you are going out of your way to dream up some big conspiracy….So you believe the yanks can fake a plane crash like that..if they were so devious why wouldn’t they have conspired to conveniently find WMDs in Iraq?
No Stephen, I actually didn’t, read my comment again, a bit slower this time. I said it wouldn’t surprise me, and that it didn’t add up, it didn’t make any sense but you’re so quick to jump to conclusions and try be really clever with your smart arse remarks aren’t you?!
@Deegan. ..and your idol Putin says that the fall of the Berlin Wall was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the last century. Face facts the Russians lost the Cold War and are clearly useless at attracting spheres of influence. So many former eastern Block countries are aligning themselves with the west.
Yes, if it turned out that was the case I wouldn’t be surprised, it would be no shock to me that the US government / mainstream media lied again. It doesn’t make me a “conspiracy nut” does it? Because I consider all the possibilities instead of just swallowing what I’m told.
Don’t hold your breath Stephen – I’ve repeatedly asked commenters on here why the US didn’t just plant chemical weapons in Iraq if they wanted to provide evidence justifying an invasion, instead of publicly admitting they hadn’t found any and being left with a large amount of egg on their face…
Avina, why didn’t they leave WMD’s in Iraq? Probably because the damage was already done, Blair et al even admitted that they were “wrong” ie they lied. But these people are untouchable and will not be brought to justice.
Benito
“The damage was already done”
Precisely – if it was all an elaborate conspiracy to justify invasion don’t you think all those bases would have been covered and planned to the nth degree of detail? Why only go 99% of the way and be left with decades of accusation instead of going the full way and planting CW to be triumphantly unveiled to the world’s media?
Avina – it seems they didn’t have to, it would have made it more credible but people don’t seem to give a toss, as long as it doesn’t affect them personally why would they care but it doesn’t debunk all of the other shadiness that goes on, it doesn’t mean that everything is the way it seems always
Totally agree there is a lot of shadiness in governments all over the world Benito, but that doesn’t mean there’s an elaborate conspiracy everywhere you look.
No, of course not, I agree, and unfortunately some of them are beyond ridiculous to a point where no one wants to touch them, but I found it strange that a Malaysia Airlines plane disappears without a trace, then soon afterwards a Malaysian Airlines plane is shot down over Ukraine, allegedly by pro-Russian forces in Ukr.
Without a shred of evidence or any investigation the Russians were blamed. Just before it occurred the EU was not getting too involved in the situation (ie not putting any embargos on Russia despite pressure from the US) next thing the plane full of European passengers is shot down, Obama and co. are blaming Russia and no one even questions the situation?
The EU then puts sanctions on trade with Russia. Can you understand why some might find that odd? I’m not saying it’s definitely a CIA black operation or anything, I’m basically saying I don’t know what happened and I find the official story very unbelievable.
Personally I’m keeping an open mind about who shot down MH17 until further evidence emerges, although I do think it was odd that separatists claimed to have shot down a cargo plane before it became known that it was a passenger plane.
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