MH17 Photos Show Crash Site Unguarded As European Monitors Arrive
European monitors arrived Friday at the site of the MH17 crash in eastern Ukraine as new photos emerged of wreckage that appeared to be left unguarded by both monitors, and pro-Russia separatists who have been reported to have barred access to parts of the crash site.
The Organization for the Security and Cooperation of Europe’s Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine said it deployed nine experts -- five from Australia and four from the Netherlands -- to the crash site. They are equipped with five armored vehicles rigged for rough terrain, according to a tweet from the agency:
More than 250 monitors from over 40 nations arrived at the crash site Friday, the OSCE said.
Also on Friday, British television network ITV News posted a picture to Twitter of what it said was a new piece of MH17 wreckage in a forest near the main crash site in Grabovo that was unguarded:
There were no bodies inside the wreckage, according to ITV News.
The wreckage found by ITV News was not the only piece of the plane found by journalists to have been unguarded. Reporter Carlo Angerer shared a photo of an area with unguarded wreckage. He also posted a photo to Twitter of a large piece of MH17’s fuselage, but it was unclear whether that part of the wreckage was secured:
An official investigation into the cause of the crash of MH17 is still ongoing, but Ukraine and western intelligence sources believe the Malaysia Airlines flight was shot down by a surface-to-air missile that they claim was fired by pro-Russia separatists fighting Ukrainian government forces.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied Russia’s involvement in the incident, and blamed the downing of MH17 on Kiev, saying the plane would never have crashed if there wasn’t fighting in eastern Ukraine.
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