Opinion What Russia must do
It must help international efforts at an investigation, or get out of the way.
The crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine, which resulted in the death of all 298 people on board, is a tragedy compounded by conflict-zone conditions. Even as a team of Dutch investigators examined the bodies on Monday, heavy fighting broke out in the region. The bodies had been left lying in the open before being put in refrigerated wagons on a goods train. Moreover, the removal of the debris by heavy machinery points at serious contamination of the site. Investigators need to recover the “four corners” of the aircraft — nose, tail, two wing tips — to ascertain the sequence of its break-up. The rebels have also reportedly found some of the flight’s recorders, which must be handed over to the proper authorities.
As evidence builds that MH17 was most likely shot down by a surface-to-air missile and the US claims major military supplies recently moved into eastern Ukraine from Russia, including an SA-11 “BUK” missile system — the suspected culprit — Moscow cannot confine itself to expressing sympathy and calling for an international investigation. It must do the right thing. Instead, on Friday, President Vladimir Putin claimed that “the government over whose territory this happened bears the responsibility for this terrible tragedy”. After the Kremlin’s overt and covert support for the Ukrainian rebels and its help in ensuring easternmost Ukraine remained outside Kiev’s control, this was hypocrisy in the face of global outrage. Even Moscow’s support for the Australia-sponsored UNSC resolution, demanding unfettered access and an independent investigation, was conditional on Russia not being blamed. Irrespective of the alleged intercepts of rebels calling a Russian military intelligence officer, Moscow cannot absolve itself of abetting circumstances that might have led to this disaster. The ICAO assigns investigation to the state in which the incident occurs, but any major air crash inquiry is an international matter. Moscow must actively help, or get out of the way and ask the rebels to do so too.
After a high-profile BRICS summit, New Delhi must now urge Moscow’s cooperation on MH17. India’s stand on the Ukrainian crisis had pleased Putin enough to elicit a thank-you earlier. It is time now for Delhi to lean on Moscow to urge cooperation in the removal of the suspected criminals guarding a suspected crime scene in Donetsk Oblast.
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