‘Bodies of innocent people are lying out in the heat,’ Borodai said. ‘We reserve the right … to begin the process of taking away the bodies. We ask the Russian Federation to help us with this problem and send their experts.’
From the outset, Russia denied any involvement. Its defence ministry spokesman claimed that none of its armed forces’ weapons, including its Buk surface-to-air missile systems, had crossed its borders into neighbouring Ukraine. The Kremlin website let the world know that Putin’s thoughts were with the friends and families of the victims and he sent his condolences to the Malaysian prime minister, Najib Razak.
According to a statement from the Kremlin, President Vladimir Putin in a phone call on 18 July with Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, offered his condolences and called for a ‘thorough and unbiased’ investigation into the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. Later, English prime minister David Cameron and his Dutch counterpart called for the European Union to ‘reconsider its approach to Russia’ in the light of evidence that pro-Moscow separatists had most likely brought down MH17.
Russian state television released what it said was a satellite photograph showing that a Ukrainian fighter jet had shot down MH17; it later said that if a missile was responsible for the downing of the plane, it must have been launched from Ukraine-controlled territory. The satellite photo, released on Friday 18 July by Russia’s Channel One and Rossiya TV stations, supposedly showed a Ukrainian fighter plane firing an air-to-air missile in the direction of Flight MH17. The channels had received the photo from a Moscow-based organisation, which had obtained it via email from a man who had identified himself as an aviation expert.
But in an interview just after the disaster, a highly placed separatist officer said that the plane was shot down by a mixed team of separatist fighters and Russian military personnel, who believed they had been targeting a Ukrainian military plane. No one was really sure about what had happened, but if the separatists had shot MH17 out of the sky, then it had certainly been a mistake on their part.
In Australia, the Netherlands, Malaysia and Ukraine, flags were flying at half-mast as the victims were mourned. Prime Minister Tony Abbott instructed all government establishments in Australia and overseas to fly Australia’s flag at half-mast as a symbol of respect.
Malaysia Airlines informed close relatives of those who died on Flight MH17 that they would be offered the opportunity to visit the crash site in eastern Ukraine. A number of relatives expressed their emotional need to visit the site where their loved ones had died, but most of them had no idea how remote and dangerous the crash site was. By car it was more than seven hundred kilometres from Kiev. It would take seven to eight hours to get there, travelling through extremely difficult terrain; upon arrival they would most likely find themselves in the middle of a war. The area was off-limits even for the authorities and investigators who had flocked to Ukraine. It was much too dangerous, so the prospect of large groups of civilians travelling to the area anytime soon seemed unlikely.
Jerzy and Angela, the parents of Perth’s promising aerospace engineer Fatima Dyczynski, refused to believe that their daughter was dead. They were determined to go to the crash site despite government officials in Australia, Germany and the Netherlands advising victims’ families against immediately travelling to the crisis-torn country. Hoping that, through some miracle, they might find their daughter alive, they became the first relatives to arrive at the crash site. Unable and unwilling to believe that no one had survived the crash, they walked through the rebel-controlled fields with mounting horror at what they witnessed. The disaster area revealed a different story to the one they wanted to believe. Nevertheless, they vowed that they would not give up the search until they had found Fatima alive.
Emma Bell’s father said while he wanted his daughter’s body to be brought home, he did not want to visit the crash site. ‘Ukraine is not Emma and that crash site is not Emma,’ he said.
At the end of Friday 18 July, Dutch minister of foreign affairs Frans Timmermans arrived in Kiev. With him were the Dutch National Forensic Investigation Team (LTFO) as well as the Dutch Safety Board (the DSB, or OVV in Dutch). The DSB had already established an incident team in The Hague; now they would set up another in Kiev.
In view of the fact that a number of countries had let Ukraine know that they would be sending investigation crews to repatriate their dead and help with forensic work, the Ukrainian government asked the Netherlands, who had lost the most civilians in the disaster and had remained neutral and refrained from pointing an accusing finger during those first days, to lead and coordinate the investigation. Forensic teams from different countries would take on the task of identifying the victims and the DSB was to investigate what had actually caused the crash. It would be a difficult task, as there were by this time three major crash locations. This disaster had destroyed so many lives—not only of the dead, but also of their relatives and friends—and the DSB realised they would be under enormous pressure to find answers to questions that probably could not be answered either quickly or easily.
Earlier that day members of the OSCE, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, had visited the site and demanded access, but they had been held at bay by separatists, who fired gunshots into the air to let them know they meant business. They left in a hurry. The OSCE had already experienced the drama of eight of their international observers being taken hostage in east Ukraine in May that year, four abducted in the region of Donetsk and four others in the region of Luhansk. After being held prisoner for almost a month, they had suddenly and unexpectedly been released on 27 June. The separatists appeared to be answerable to no one and their actions were highly unpredictable. The OSCE was not going to put its people’s lives on the line.
Timmermans, who had previously rushed to Kiev during the Maidan riots, was hoping that his presence would secure access to the crash site. He wanted his teams to be allowed to do their work without interference, but they were soon denied access to any of the sites. According to the rebels, the area was much too dangerous to enter at this time and no one could guarantee the safety of the teams. They would have to wait; it was anyone’s guess how long the delay would be.
Dismayed at the prospect that the site would continue to be contaminated, the teams could do nothing other than obey the rebels’ orders. Being unarmed civilians, they weren’t in a position to argue with people bearing heavy arms.
Rod Anderson, a forensic police officer from Canberra, was heading towards Ukraine. Rod’s usual job was station sergeant at Gungahlin police station in the Australian Capital Territory. His working days were normally focused on investigating traffic crashes, but on the morning of 18 July he awoke to the news that a Malaysia Airlines plane flying through Ukrainian airspace had crashed. Lots dead, although reports were not sure about any Australians. Anderson had barely finished his coffee that morning before his phone rang; the caller was the Australian Federal Police’s chief forensic scientist and national disaster victim identification (DVI) commander, Dr Simon Walsh. Anderson was Walsh’s ACT counterpart in essential DVI business. The two took turns heading to the frontline when Australians were in trouble.
The Dutch had asked Australia to help form a multinational search party that was assembling at Donetsk. The flight to Kiev fell to Anderson.