Renewed fighting near the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight
17 forced Dutch and Australian investigators to cancel plans to
visit the wreckage-strewn area Sunday, further delaying efforts to
collect evidence and recover remaining bodies.
Ukrainian officials said their forces were attacking separatists
on several other fronts in an apparent effort to cut off the city
of Donetsk from the other rebel stronghold, Luhansk, and supply
routes across the Russian border.
The military, they added, also was trying to retake the area
around the crash site to ensure an investigation into the downing
of the plane. Both Ukraine and U.S. officials say they have
mounting evidence pro-Russia separatists shot down Flight 17 with a
surface-to-air missile system likely supplied by Moscow. Rebel
officials, who deny shooting down the plane and point the finger at
Ukrainian troops, meanwhile accused Kiev of trying to seize the
crash site to tamper with evidence.
Authorities investigating the July 17 incident that killed all
298 people aboard, nearly two-thirds of them Dutch, have been
frustrated by the lack of full access to the site due to the
conflict between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russia rebels
led by Alexander Borodai. The mission's aim is to locate the last
remains of passengers and forensically examine the site. But the
longer it takes to secure the area, the harder it will be for
investigators to gather untainted evidence that could determine who
or what brought the plane down.
"If there is no security, the experts can't do their job," said
Alexander Hug, head of the monitoring mission for the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Heavy fighting was reported around the town of Horlivka, where
regional officials reported as many as a dozen civilians, including
some children, were killed in a rocket attack. The rebels and the
military each blamed the other for the attack. By evening, military
officials said Horlivka was surrounded, though that couldn't be
independently confirmed.
OSCE spokesman Michael Bociurkiw said a group of the Dutch and
the Australian unarmed policemen and experts would try to get to
the crash site Monday despite the raging conflict. But a top leader
of the pro-Russian insurgents in Donetsk said that the experts may
not be able to get to the crash site "for the time being" because
of the fighting.
Ukrainian troops "moved there without any tactical reason" said
Andrei Purgin, first deputy prime minister of the self-proclaimed
Donetsk People's Republic. He added the government forces are
"deliberately shelling a patch of land on which we put our hopes to
find out where the missile was probably launched from."
Earlier Sunday, Malaysia said an international police force from
the Netherlands, Australia and Malaysia--the three countries that
suffered the most casualties in the downing of Flight 17--would be
deployed to secure the crash site after reaching a deal with the
leader of the Ukrainian separatists.
Under the agreement, Malaysia would send 68 police personnel
Wednesday as part of the international group, Malaysian Prime
Minister Najib Razak said.
Australia is sending unarmed police to the crash site as part of
a Dutch-led mission to recover the remaining bodies of passengers,
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said. Australia has about 170
federal police stationed in Ukraine ready to assist in securing the
site if needed.
"Our objective is to get in, get cracking and get out," Mr.
Abbott said. "This is a risky mission, no doubt about that, but all
of the professional advice that I have is that the safest way to
conduct it is unarmed as part of a police-led humanitarian
mission," he told journalists in Canberra.
U.S. and Ukrainian officials accuse Russian-backed separatists
of downing Flight 17 during a routine flight from Amsterdam to
Kuala Lumpur with a sophisticated surface-to-air missile. Russia
has denied any involvement and condemned the attack, suggesting it
was carried out by Ukrainian forces.
The crash site's location in rebel-held territory in Ukraine has
complicated efforts to collect the remains of the dead and hampered
investigation efforts. Dutch forensics experts trying to recover
bodies at the crash site were stopped by pro-Russia rebels Saturday
before they could reach the area.
The head of the general staff of the separatists in eastern
Ukraine, who only gave his nom de guerre as Mykhailo, said the
rebel leadership had limited reporters' access to conflict zones
but denied it advised the Dutch against going to the crash
site.
He added that the separatists had enough power and resources to
prevent the Ukrainian army from retaking Donetsk.
Malaysia said the probe would require more than 30 investigators
to cover the wide area, but continuing fighting prevented
deployment of such a large contingent.
"I hope that this agreement with Mr. Borodai will ensure
security on the ground, so the international investigators can
conduct their work," Mr. Najib said Sunday.
Mr. Abbott said that the police would stay as long as they
needed to bring the remains home but that the operation wasn't
expected to take longer than two to three weeks.
"This is a volatile situation. This is contested ground, and we
don't want to be there any longer than is absolutely necessary,"
Mr. Abbott said.
Maarten van Tartwijk contributed to this article.
Write to Jason Ng at jason.ng@wsj.com and Rebecca Thurlow at
rebecca.thurlow@wsj.com
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