Putin urges Ukraine cease-fire after plane attack

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-EXCITE

By PETER LEONARD and DMITRY LOVETSKY

ROZSYPNE, Ukraine (AP) — Emergency workers, police officers and even off-duty coal miners spread out Friday across the sunflower fields and villages of eastern Ukraine, searching the wreckage of a Malaysia Airlines jet shot down as it flew miles above the country's battlefield.

The attack Thursday afternoon killed 298 people from nearly a dozen nations — including vacationers, students and a large contingent of scientists heading to an AIDS conference in Australia. At least 189 of the dead were from the Netherlands.

U.S. intelligence authorities said a surface-to-air missile brought down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 as it flew from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, but they did not speculate on who fired it. The Ukrainian government in Kiev, the separatist pro-Russia rebels they are fighting and the Russia government that Ukraine accuses of supporting the rebels all denied shooting the plane down. Moscow also denies backing the rebels.

Russian President Vladimir Putin called Friday for a cease-fire in eastern Ukraine and urged the two sides to hold peace talks as soon as possible. A day earlier, Putin had blamed Ukraine for the crash, saying Kiev was responsible for the unrest in its Russian-speaking eastern regions. But he did not accuse Ukraine of shooting the plane down and did not address the key question of whether Russia gave the rebels such a powerful missile.

FULL story at link.



Ukrainian coal miners search the site of a crashed Malaysia Airlines passenger plane near the village of Rozsypne, Ukraine, eastern Ukraine, Friday, July 18, 2014. Rescue workers, policemen and off-duty coal miners were combing a sprawling area in eastern Ukraine near the Russian border where the Malaysian plane ended up in burning pieces Thursday, killing all 298 aboard. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)



Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140718/eu--ukraine-plane-da0ec8e91c.html

[IronGate]

1. At this point, I wouldn't trust a fucking thing Putin does or says. nt.

[jakeXT]

4. Already 20 deaths today

Calls for ceasefire in Ukraine fall on deaf ears in wake of plane crash as at least 20 are killed in heavy shelling across country

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2697643/Calls-ceasefire-Ukraine-fall-deaf-ears-wake-plane-crash-20-killed-heavy-shelling-country.html

[William769]

5. Fucking right!

[BeyondGeography]

2. Good luck unreleasing the hounds, asshole

You going to take their army toys back from them, too?

[geek tragedy]

3. Putin's words are irrelevant. His obligations are clear-pull his goons out of Ukraine,

extradite their leaders to the Hague, seal the border for real, and enter into negotiations for reparations.

He no longer has discretion in this matter

[William769]

6. This. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[Tarheel_Dem]

7. He lit this fire, and now it's an uncontrolled, unmitigated disaster for him & the world.

Asshole.

[safeinOhio]

8. Sees that he pissed off

Western Europe. While U.S. sanctions will hurt, European sanctions can bring Russia to it's knees.
Time to make nice.

[The Magistrate]

9. Talk Is Cheap, Sir

He has to cut off the arms pipeline, and pull his people out.

[Igel]

10. It would be interesting to plot the frequency and demands of Putin's calls for a ceasefire.

They seem to become louder and more demanding when the rebels are having problems.

When the rebels are advancing, he goes quiet.

Currently Severodonetsk is close to being surrounded, and if it falls then the situation becomes more compact for the Ukr forces. Stakhanov, where much of the LDR government's bugged out to (reports were, two weeks ago) would be open to assault. There's fighting in and around Dzerhzinsk (nice name, that one) near Donets'k, and the four regions of Luhansk have been shelled today. The SE is claimed to be under Ukr forces control and the airport "unblockaded". That means the eastern supply routes north of Krasnodon are under threat. There's not so much fighting down in the south, where the ceasefire would need to be today. But the demands for a ceasefire ratcheted up a notch or two.

Even worse, even RIA Novosti-Ukraine is showing cracks. For weeks the Ukr press has reported that Luhansk has been shelled from within by rebels. They'd fire at the Ukr then turn their artillery or Grads around and shell in the opposite direction. There's even video of Grad fire coming from one spot and then switching direction. And artillery shells that come in at too low an angle to have been fired from beyond rebel lines. So Luhansk turned off all non-Russian radio (tv vanished a while back) to control the message. Recently they said that "diversionary groups" have been entering Luhansk dressed as rebels with Grad systems or artillery and opening fire, trying to make it look like the rebels are attacking civilian buildings and quarters. While RIA Novosti continues to claim that all shelling in the city has to be by Ukr forces, and they've started to report on the diversionary groups, some of their articles have also started to have a "really--somebody believes what the LDR propaganda machine is spouting?" atitude. "LDR propaganda machine" is their phrase.

Worst of all, Slavyansk is reported to have electricity back on line fully, and the N. Donets'k canal is full as far as Volnovakha, meaning that much of the remaining water problems in the area will be taken care of. All that's needing is getting pumping stations back on line--but one of the main ones for part of western Donets'k province is in the hands of the rebels (who put it out of commission and won't let DTEK work on it).