President Vladimir Putin defied international anger over Russia’s alleged role in the shooting down of a Malaysian jetliner as the U.S. and Europe threaten further sanctions against his increasingly isolated country.
As leaders from London to Washington signaled Putin risks becoming a pariah, the Russian leader suggested they were playing politics. At the site of the crash in eastern Ukraine, armed pro-Russian rebels are preventing the departure of refrigerated train cars carrying corpses and body parts of crash victims, according to the government in Kiev.
“Nobody should and no one has the right to use this tragedy to achieve selfish political aims,” Putin said in a video posted on the Kremlin’s website after a series of phone calls yesterday with world leaders about the crash. “Such events should unite, not divide people.”
Russia’s relations with the rest of the world are deteriorating four months after his annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region sparked Europe’s biggest geopolitical crisis since the end of the Cold War.
Putin will hold a regular weekly meeting of his Security Council tomorrow to discuss “matters related to ensuring the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Russian Federation,” the Kremlin said in an e-mailed statement.
International Outrage
The Malaysia Air crash site at Grabovo, less than 60 miles from Russia, has become a focus of international outrage as armed rebels hover over the investigation, making reclamation of wreckage and corpses more difficult.
A total of 282 bodies have been found, the Ukrainian government said today. Ukraine’s state emergency service website said 251 bodies and 66 parts of human remains had been brought to refrigerated train wagons in Torez as of 7 a.m. local time. Rebels continue to prevent the departure of the train, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told reporters today in Kiev. The plane was shot down on July 17 killing all 298 passengers and crew.
“Our top priority for now remains the repatriation of the bodies,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Ruttesaid during a briefing in parliament in The Hague today. “In the case that access remains insufficient in the coming days, all political, economic and financial measures are on the table for those that are directly or indirectly responsible for this.”
Dutch Experts
Peter van Vilet, leader of a Dutch forensic team sent to eastern Ukraine, told journalists in Donetsk that it’s not possible to “do the identification of victims” at the current site and that he wants the train with victims’ remains moved to another location.
Putin again blamed the downing of the plane on the Ukraine conflict and said that international investigators should have full access to the wreckage. Russia will “do everything it can” to seek a negotiated settlement of the Ukraine conflict, he said. The leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Alexander Borodai, today repeated that his rebels didn’t shoot down the plane.
Russia’s Micex Index dropped 1.7 percent to 1,399.04 by 3:23 p.m. in Moscow, while the ruble was little changed against the dollar. OAO Gazprom, the nation’s biggest natural gas exporter, fell 2.3 percent, while OAO Lukoil, the nation’s second-biggest oil producer, dropped 2.3 percent.
Putin, already facing sanctions over Crimea and Russia’s role in backing the rebels in Ukraine, is confronting worldwide scorn over the crash as evidence mounts that Russia provided the missile used to down the jetliner.
More Sanctions
U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said yesterday that he agreed with his French and German counterparts that Europe should be ready to impose further sanctions on Russia at a meeting of European Union foreign ministers tomorrow in Brussels. Britain wants sanctions against the entire Russian defense industry, a U.K. official said.
Putin again blamed the downing of the plane on the Ukraine conflict and said that international investigators should have full access to the wreckage. Russia will “do everything it can” to seek a negotiated settlement of the Ukraine conflict, he said. The leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Alexander Borodai, today repeated that his rebels didn’t shoot down the plane.
Russia’s Micex Index dropped 1.7 percent to 1,399.04 by 3:23 p.m. in Moscow, while the ruble was little changed against the dollar. OAO Gazprom, the nation’s biggest natural gas exporter, fell 2.3 percent, while OAO Lukoil, the nation’s second-biggest oil producer, dropped 2.3 percent.
Putin, already facing sanctions over Crimea and Russia’s role in backing the rebels in Ukraine, is confronting worldwide scorn over the crash as evidence mounts that Russia provided the missile used to down the jetliner.
More Sanctions
U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said yesterday that he agreed with his French and German counterparts that Europe should be ready to impose further sanctions on Russia at a meeting of European Union foreign ministers tomorrow in Brussels. Britain wants sanctions against the entire Russian defense industry, a U.K. official said.
Source: Bloomberg