Abbott fears continued MH17 interference
Prime Minister Tony Abbott fears that while Russia might say the right things about an international investigation into the downed Malaysia Airlines flight 17, interference at the crash site will continue.
Mr Abbott described the crash site in eastern Ukraine as "chaotic" and reports of pro-Russian rebels meddling with the evidence - including the removal of bodies - as "outrageous".
Russia has agreed to an investigation amid mounting scepticism about its willingness to co-operate with the international community.
Journalist witnesses hellish scenes, but no sign of tampering with evidence
Mr Abbott remains concerned about security at the site.
"My fear is that Russia will say the right thing, but that on the ground interference with the site, interference with investigators, interference with the dignified treatment of bodies will continue," he told ABC television on Sunday.
An OSCE inspector speaks to media at the crash site. Photo: Reuters
At least two attempts by international investigators to access the site had been frustrated by rebels, Mr Abbott said.
"The site is chaotic, it's absolutely chaotic," he said.
"The kinds of things that would normally be happening at an air crash site are not happening."
Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko had invited Australia to "fully participate" in any aspect of the investigation, including body recovery.
A team of Australians had assembled in Kiev, the prime minister said.
He warned it could be weeks before the victims' remains were returned to their families in Australia.
"The grim truth is that not all the bodies will be intact," he said.
Mr Abbott said reports the site had been tampered with and bodies removed were "outrageous".
Russian Minister for Economic Development Alexei Ulyukayev, in Sydney for a G20 summit, was summoned for an unexpected meeting with Mr Abbott on Saturday.
The prime minister made clear his "dissatisfaction with the way this has been handled".
"Russian controlled territory, Russian-backed rebels, quite likely a Russian supplied weapon - Russia can't wash its hands of this," he said.
Mr Abbott would not say if he had tried to make contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin, nor if Australia would block his attendance at November's G20 meeting in Brisbane.
"It's not too late for changes of heart," he said.
"There are excuses. There is blame shifting. There is handwashing going on, and that's not acceptable, it's simply not acceptable."
He said the international community had a "very high degree of confidence" MH17 was brought down by a missile launched by Russian backed rebels.
There was "slightly less confidence" that the weapon was Russian supplied, he said.
"There is very, very strong evidence that sophisticated weaponry has moved across the border from Russia into Ukraine, sometimes its moving backwards and forwards across the border from Russia into the Ukraine," Mr Abbott said.
These were "wrenching times" but he couldn't allow emotions to cloud his judgment.
"You look at the faces of the dead and they're your neighbours, they're your friends and they could even be your kids," he said.
His own daughters had recently travelled on the same flight home from Europe.
Mr Abbott offered to personally call families of victims of the crash but said he didn't want to intrude on people's grief.
He attended a memorial service for victims at St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney on Sunday.
A national day of mourning, marked by a national commemorative service, for all the Australian victims will be held in the next fortnight.
Ukraine accuses Russia of helping rebels loot crash site
Ukraine has accused Russia of helping insurgents destroy evidence at the crash site of a Malaysian jet whose downing in the rebel-held east has drawn global condemnation of the Kremlin.
Outraged world leaders have demanded Russia's full cooperation with what is becoming a monumentally challenging probe into the shooting down of a Kuala Lumpur-bound flight from Amsterdam with 298 people from a dozen countries on board.
Gunmen backed up by muscular diplomatic support from the Kremlin have shown few signs of being ready to cooperate with an investigation that could blame them for blowing apart the Boeing 777 jet.
International monitors were met on Saturday by Kalashnikov-wielding militias who allowed them access to only the outskirts of the field -- its swaying sunflowers hiding dismembered remains of charred and decomposing bodies of victims whose lives were cut short on Thursday.
The grisly site has turned into the epicentre of the Cold War-style standoff between the West and an increasingly isolated Moscow -- its diplomatic reputation questioned around the world -- over the future over the war-scarred former Soviet state.
The Ukrainian government issued a furious statement declaring that "terrorists with the support of Russia are trying to destroy proof of this international crime".
Kiev said armed fighters were hours away from loading vital clues aboard trucks that would be rushed across the Russian border before a full team of experts inspected the expansive site where remains of flight MH17 hit the ground.
- Death and looting amid scene of MH17 tragedy -
Looters have reportedly swarmed the Ukrainian village where Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crashed on Thursday.
USA Today reports that looters have pillaged the possessions of 298 people killed in the tragedy with an unknown amount of items stolen from the debris strewn across a large area.
International investigators retrieving luggage as evidence reportedly found that many of the possessions had already been opened and rifled through.
"The looting and pillaging could ultimately interfere with the official investigation into the MH17 disaster," USA Today reported.
Passports, stuffed animals and lunch boxes for children are said to be just some of the items left behind by looters.
According to USA Today, that's only the beginning as a number of unidentified individuals have been allowed into the investigation area.
"The recovery effort lacks organisation as possessions found in the debris have not been categorised or recorded," the paper claimed.
This image taken from video shows a guidebook found in the wreckage of passenger plane flight MH17 after it was shot down Thursday as it flew over Ukraine, near the village of Hrabove, in eastern Ukraine. Photo: AP/Channel 1.
"Unlike standard crime scene procedures, the system at the crash site is lacking in order and organisation."
"This has encouraged mobs of looter and pillagers to swarm around the crash site looking for valuables."
Freelance photojournalist Filip Warwick told Fairfax there is strong evidence to suggest looting had taken place before any security presence at the site.
"I noticed that I hadn't come across a single wallet with money, or a mobile phone or a camera. They've all mysteriously gone missing."
Ukraine and pro-Russian rebels have since agreed to set up a security zone around the crash site of the Malaysian jet that was apparently shot down in the separatist east, Ukraine's security service chief said on Saturday.
Internationally mediated talks "concluded with an agreement to set up a 20-kilometre security zone so that Ukraine could fulfil the most important thing -- identify the bodies (and) hand them over to relatives," Ukrainian Security Service head Valentyn Nalyvaychenko said in televised remarks.
- Missing black boxes -
The explosive charges set off near-panic across global capitals on Saturday.
Malaysia's transport minister expressed alarm before boarding a flight to Kiev over "indications that vital evidence has not been preserved in place".
And Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte -- his tiny nation mourning the loss of 192 compatriots -- said he had called on Russian President Vladimir Putin during a "very intense" conversation to "take responsibility" for a credible probe.
"One of the crucial questions is the fate of the black boxes," said Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe spokesman Michael Bociurkiw.
A woman reacts to news regarding a Malaysia Airlines plane that crashed in eastern Ukraine at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, Malaysia. Photo: AP/Joshua Paul.
He said the Vienna-based group's monitoring team on the ground had been "unable today, for the second day, to gain any answers to that question".
The head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic into whose airspace the doomed jet strayed to avoid bad weather said his men had never recovered the data recorders or tamper with evidence.
But he found the Kremlin's verbal backing eroding as the day wore on and global pressure on Putin mounted.
Moscow announced after talks between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that "material evidence, including black boxes" must be immediately handed over to inspectors.
The diplomatic wrangling was accompanied by uninterrupted fighting across Ukraine's eastern rustbelt -- a Russia-speaking region of seven million people who largely view the more nationalistic west of the splintered country with mistrust.
Ukrainian forces reported taking full control of the main airport of the neighbouring separatist stronghold of Lugansk and launching all-out offensives against two nearby towns.
Government troops said they had also established full control of Donetsk airport for the first time since it was seized at the end of May in a bloody raid that saw militias lose more than 40 fighters -- most of them Russian nationals.
Kiev said the latest clashes killed five soldiers and wounded another 20.
- 'Wake-up call' -
US President Barack Obama and major world leaders now agree that the Malaysia Airlines jet was blown out of the sky at 33,000 feet (10,000 metres) by a sophisticated surface-to-air missile fired from rebel-controlled territory.
Kiev has gone a step further by accusing militias of using a Russian-supplied Buk system to down the jet after confusing it with a Ukrainian military transporter.
Ukraine has released recordings of what it said was an intercepted call between an insurgent commander and a Russian intelligence officer as they realised they had shot down a passenger jet.
But Putin on Thursday blamed the tragedy on Kiev's three-month military operation and said its new leaders were solely responsible for security across the strategic nation -- since its 1991 independence the geopolitical marker between Russia and the West.
Moscow has also drawn some governments' ire by questioning why the packed jet was flying over a combat zone in the first place.
Pro-Russian separatists watch as Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) monitors arrive at the crash site of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, near the settlement of Grabovo in the Donetsk region, July 18, 2014. Photo: REUTERS/MAXIM ZMEYEV
The plane's downing came less than a day after the United States unleashed punishing sanctions against some of Russia's most important energy and military firms -- most of them with links to Putin -- and urged more hesitant European leaders to follow suit.
"I think that this certainly will be a wake-up call for Europe and the world that there are consequences to an escalation of the conflict in eastern Ukraine," Obama said in a special address.
- EU reviews Russia ties -
The European Union -- many of its member states dependent on Russian gas -- took the far less punitive step on Friday of curbing some future investments in Russia and leaving the option open for broader sanctions.
But British Prime Minister David Cameron said he and his Dutch counterpart had agreed the bloc "will need to reconsider its approach to Russia in light of evidence that pro-Russian separatists brought down the plane".
US Department of Defense spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby also argued that "it strains credulity that (the missile) can be used by separatists without some measure of Russian support and assistance".
Putin rejects all charges of providing either funding or military support to the insurgents in order to punish the new pro-Western leaders in Kiev for the February ouster of a Kremlin-backed president.
Rebel commanders have also denied being in possession of any functioning Buk systems -- a claim that contradicts an earlier announcement of them having seized some from Ukrainian troops.
Kiev has released footage purportedly showing militias trying to covertly send one Buk unit back across the Russian border.
