Ben Judah has been blogging rather interestingly on MH17 and Putin's possible reaction to it:
Vladimir Putin has been here before. He has been presented with the bad news yet again, that Russian officials are responsible for grotesque loss of life, as a result of their own sheer incompetence. Yet again, Putin now finds himself feeling infuriated, humiliated, betrayed—and of course, blameless.
Russia has not been governed efficiently at any point in its history. The nation today finds itself ruled by a curious monster of Putin’s creation—an all powerful but hideously corrupt bureaucracy, an imperial creature, unanswerable to anybody outside the office of the President, ruling autocratically over the population, but rendered laughably incompetent by its own metastasizing corruption.
Putin’s disasters all come back to this—the inability of the Russian state to deliver reliable government, without accidents, or these horrific screw ups. In 2010 various global governance and corruption indicators showed that Russia was almost as corrupt as Papua New Guinea, with the property rights of Kenya, as easy to do business in as Uganda, and as uncompetitive and monopoly ridden as Sri Lanka. Last year it was ranked the world’s 127th most corrupt nation out of a total of 177.
Putin’s rule has been punctuated by tragedies: from the sinking of the Kursk submarine (2000), to the Nord-Ost theater siege (2002), and the Beslan school massacre (2004), all well known in the West. Then there are those accidents that are painfully remembered in Russia, such as Sayano–Shushenskaya power plant explosion (2009), and the deadly Moscow smog and rampaging forest fires (2010).
Read the entire article here
As forensic experts arrive at the site we hear roar of grads in the distance #mh17 #ukraine
— natalia antelava (@antelava) July 22, 2014Sustained rocket fire, possibly Grad, audible in distance as Malaysian experts carry out #MH17 crash site observation #Ukraine
— Will Vernon (@BBCWillVernon) July 22, 2014Just had 15 seconds or more of really heavy sustained shelling not far from us #MH17. #ukraine order of no shelling within 45km broken?
— Chris Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) July 22, 2014
International monitors tell me at crash site that the wreckage of #MH17 has been "significantly altered." pic.twitter.com/T0vXvCwwHi
— Terry Moran (@TerryMoran) July 22, 2014
#Ukraine says Russian officer pushed the button to shoot down #MH17 http://t.co/SMbZRBli9Q
— Just Hovens Greve (@JustHovensGreve) July 22, 2014
Whoops! Russ TV invite expert who knows what talking abt + criticises govt version of #MH17 https://t.co/i7DoFLJX7H pic.twitter.com/9NWx9iitZh
— Oliver Carroll (@olliecarroll) July 22, 2014
#BREAKING Dutch PM Rutte: First #MH17 victims arrive at Eindhoven airport tomorrow.
— Just Hovens Greve (@JustHovensGreve) July 22, 2014
First pictures back from newly Ukrainian-controlled Severodonetsk HT http://t.co/0eTCg2jHOU pic.twitter.com/accIRAHCUZ
— Oliver Carroll (@olliecarroll) July 22, 2014
Here's why @Independent thinks Europe is reluctant to impose harsher sanctions on Russia http://t.co/DFAqku0k6b pic.twitter.com/DyRWta95so
— Maxim Eristavi (@MaximEristavi) July 22, 2014
Our news desk has issued this item on a protest outside the Russian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur:
Hundreds of Malaysian protesters marched on the Russian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur today, waving signs and demanding justice for victims of the Malaysia Airlines flight that was shot down last week.
The demonstrators are demanding the arrest and trial of those responsible for downing the flight in pro-Russian, rebel-held eastern Ukraine, which killed 298 people onboard.
A Russian Embassy official said staff members have been order to stay inside the embassy compound.
Western countries have accused the pro-Russian separatists, possibly with help from Moscow, of shooting down the plane.
Earlier today, Russian Ambassador to Malaysia Lyudmila Vorobyeva repeated Moscow’s denial of having anything to do with the plane crash and again accused Ukraine of being responsible.
(AFP, AP)
WATCH: Kuala Lumpur Protesters Demand Justice For MH17 Victims
Reuters has been reporting on the possibility of atrocities in the Ukraine conflict becoming classified as war crimes (from RFE/RL's news desk):
According to the Reuters news agency, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has made a confidential legal assessment that Ukraine is officially in a war, opening the door to possible war crimes prosecutions.
Reuters -- citing sources -- says the ICRC has not made any public statement, seeking not to offend either Ukraine or Russia by calling it a civil war or a case of foreign aggression.
ICRC spokeswoman Anastasia Isyuk told Reuters "The qualification has been shared bilaterally and confidentially."
Designating the conflict in Ukraine as a war -- either international or civil -- would turn both sides into combatants with equal liability for war crimes, which have no statute of limitations and cannot be absolved by an amnesty.
Without the designation, Ukrainian government forces would be responsible for protecting civilians and infrastructure under international human rights law, while separatists would only be liable under Ukraine's criminal laws.