Russia ready to join MH17 probe
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Russia has indicated that it is ready to help with the investigation into the downing of flight MH17.
Under intense international pressure to help with the probe, the country’s Foreign Ministry has said it will assist the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) with its investigation.
“Russia is closely watching the investigation into the cause of the Malaysian plane accident,” a statement from the ministry said. “We hope that [the flight data recorders] will subsequently be handed over to the ICAO-led international group of experts whom Russia is ready to join.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier urged Ukraine to suspend military operations against pro-Russian rebels.
“We’ll do everything possible to influence militia in the eastern Ukraine,” Putin was quoted saying at a Russian Security Council meeting on Tuesday. “But it is insufficient. It is necessary to urge the Kiev authorities to observe the basic norms of decency and ceasefire for the investigation.”
The flight data recorders, or black boxes, have been handed to Malaysian officials and Malaysian PM Najib Razak said they were in a “good condition”. Their contents will now be flown back to the UK to be analysed, accompanied by the Malaysian team.
Flight MH17 is widely believed to have been mistakenly shot down by a ground-to-air missile, supplied by Russia to rebels in eastern Ukraine. The BBC reported unnamed US officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in Washington DC as saying that there is a “solid case” that “an SA-11 [missile] that was fired from eastern Ukraine under conditions the Russians helped create”.
Meanwhile, the first bodies of the victims are expected to be flown back to the Netherlands shortly. A total of 283 passengers and 15 crew members died when flight MH17 crashed over eastern Ukraine.
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