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Special Correspondent
Russian President Vladimir Putin has urged all the warring parties in Ukraine to ensure the conditions for the full investigation of the crash of the Malaysian Boeing plane in the Donetsk region. The Russian Federation head of state made a corresponding special statement on this issue. Putin called what has happened in the Donetsk region a terrible tragedy and said that Russia “has repeatedly called on all the warring parties to immediately stop bloodshed and sit down at the negotiating table.”

“It can be said with confidence that had the combat actions in the east of Ukraine not been resumed on June 28, this tragedy would have not happened for sure,” the president noted.

“At the same time, nobody should and has the right to use this tragedy for achieving the mercenary political goals,” Putin stressed.
He added that such developments should not separate, but unite people.

“All the people responsible for the situation in the region should raise their responsibility both before their own people and the peoples of the countries’ representatives of which have fallen victim to this catastrophe,” he said. “It is necessary to do everything to ensure security of work of international experts at the tragedy site,” the president noted.

“Representatives of Donbas, Donetsk, representatives of the Ukrainian Emergencies Ministry and Malaysian experts are already working there today. But this is not enough.”

He stressed the need to send to the catastrophe site to work “a full-fledged expert group under the ICAO aegis and the corresponding international commission.”

“It is necessary to do everything to ensure its full, absolute security, provide the humanitarian corridors it needs in its work,” Putin said.
The Russian leader also said that Moscow for its part would do everything that depends on it to “make the conflict in the east of Ukraine transfer from today’s military phase to the discussion phase at the negotiating table by peaceful and exclusively diplomatic means.”

The Russian leader previously discussed by telephone the situation around the investigation of the air crash in the Donetsk region with the leaders of Germany, France, Great Britain, Austria and the Netherlands.

On July 21 the Russian Defence Ministry published some of the data gathered as part of the probe into the July 17 Malaysian Boeing crash in eastern Ukraine. The Russian military detected a Ukrainian SU-25 fighter jet gaining height towards the MH17 Boeing on the day of the catastrophe.

Kiev must explain why the military jet was tracking the passenger airplane, the Russian Defence Ministry said.
“A Ukraine Air Force military jet was detected gaining height, it’s distance from the Malaysian Boeing was 3 to 5km,” said the head of the Main Operations Directorate of the HQ of Russia’s military forces, Lieutenant-General Andrey Kartopolov speaking at a media conference in Moscow on Monday.

“(We) would like to get an explanation as to why the military jet was flying along a civil aviation corridor at almost the same time and at the same level as a passenger plane,” he stated.

“The SU-25 fighter jet can gain an altitude of 10km, according to its specification,” he added. “It’s equipped with air-to-air R-60 missiles that can hit a target at a distance up to 12km, up to 5km for sure.” The presence of the Ukrainian military jet can be confirmed by video shots made by the Rostov monitoring centre, Kartopolov stated.

At the moment of the MH17 crash an American satellite was flying over the area of eastern Ukraine, according to Russia’s Defence Ministry. It urged the US to publish the space photos and data captured by it.

In addition, MH17 crashed within the operating zone of the Ukrainian army’s self-propelled, medium-range surface-to-air ‘Buk’ missile systems, the Russian general said.

“We have space images of certain places where the Ukraine’s air defence was located in the southeast of the country,” Kartapolov noted.
Kartapolov also pointed to the fact that on the day of the plane crash Ukraine’s military increased activity on the part of Ukraine’s Kupol-M1 9S18 radars, which are part of the Buk system: “..there were 7 radars operating on July 15, 8 radars operating on July 16, and 9 radars operating on July 17 in the area. Then, starting with July 18, the intensity of radar activities radically decreased, and now there are no more than two or three radars operating a day. The reason behind this is yet to be found.”

The Boeing 777, flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, crashed on Thursday, July 17, in the Donetsk region in the area of combat actions between the local militia fighters Ukraine’s government troops. All 298 passengers were killed in the crash.

Embassy of the Russian Federation in the Republic of Zimbabwe. Official web-site: www.ruszim.org.zw;
www.twitter.com/RuEmbZimbabwe; www.facebook.com/RuEmbZimbabwe