AFP quotes Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott complaining that more than a week after Flight MH17 came down in eastern Ukraine, human remains are still at the crash site.
Abbott said on July 26 that Australian investigators have had access to the site and that "plainly there were unrecovered body remains" there.
There were 37 Australian nationals and residents among the passengers.
Australia is sending 190 police officers to Europe to participate in the Dutch-led international operation to secure the crash site.
Ukrainian officials say around 200 bodies have been recovered so far, with the first remains sent to the Netherlands on July 23.
The last remains recovered so far are expected to be sent to the Netherlands later today.
Here's our overnight wrap-up of the EU's latest sanctions moves:
The European Union has added to its sanctions list 15 individuals and 18 entities over their role in the Ukraine crisis.
Among the individuals subjected to travel bans and asset freezes are Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) director Mikhail Fradkov, Federal Security Service (FSB) director Aleksandr Bortnikov as well as Pavel Gubarev, self-described leader of the so-called Republic of Donetsk.
Sergei Beseda, who is responsible for FSB's intelligence operations and international activity, is included as well.
Kadyrov has expressed support for the annexation of Crimea and has said that he was ready to send 74,000 volunteers to eastern Ukraine.
The governor of Russia's Krasnodar region, Aleksandr Tkachyov has, like Kadyrov, been added for his support for the current Crimean authorities.
Three more members of Russia's Security Council are on the list -- Nikolai Patrushev, Rashid Nurgaliev and Boris Gryzlov -- as well as Mikhail Degtyarev from the State Duma.
Six separatists from eastern Ukraine have also been blacklisted.
Pavel Gubarev, one of the so-called leaders of the self-proclaimed People's Republic of Donetsk is on the list as is his wife Ekaterina Gubareva.
They are joined by the defense minister and the first vice prime minister of the self-styled republic, Fedor Berezin and Vladimir Antyufeyev -- former "minister of state security" in Moldova's separatist Transdniester region.
Also on the list are the self-described president of the so-called Republic of Novorossiya, Valery Kaurov and Serhy Zdriliuk -- a senior aide of the paramilitary leader Igor Strelkov, who has already been blacklisted by the EU.
The 18 entities consist of nine companies and nine institutions set up by pro-Russian separatists who have proclaimed independence in eastern Ukraine.
Among the institutions slapped with sanctions are the self-proclaimed separatist entities of Luhansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine as well as Novorossiya.
Six military separatist groups fighting in eastern Ukraine will also have their assets frozen: the Luhansk guard, the Army of the Southeast, the Donbass People's militia, the Vostok battalion, Sobol and the International Union of Public Associations ”Great Don Army."
The nine economic entities on the list are companies from Crimea whose ownership was transferred contrary to Ukrainian law after the region's annexation by Russia, including the Kerch ferry enterprise and the Kerch commercial seaport, the Sevastopol commercial seaport, the “Nizhnyaya Oreanda" resort, the Azov distillery plant, the Novy Svet sparkling wine factory, the Magarach national institute of wine, agricultural company Massandra and Universal Avia.
The EU list of sanctions now has 87 individuals and 20 entities in Ukraine and Russia. EU ambassadors might decide to expand the numbers further when they meet in Brussels on 28 July.
According to EU sources, the 28-member bloc's leaders are also expected to agree on restrictions to exporting oil technology as part of a new sanctions package targeting Russia while excluding the Russian gas sector from the punitive measures.
EU members have shown hesitance to impose penalties impacting Russian gas, which Europe relies on heavily for energy.
The sources said that the exclusion of gas-extraction technology from the sanctions improves the likelihood that EU leaders will agree on a sanctions package punishing Russia for its role in the Ukraine crisis.
EU Council President Herman van Rompuy said in an official letter sent to EU heads of state that the gas exclusion is based on "the need to preserve EU energy security," according to two sources who read from the letter.
Barring any major developments that ends the live blogging for tonight.
It really is...
A new warning from the Pentagon:
The Pentagon says it believes Russia could deliver multiple launch rocket systems to pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine “potentially today.”
"We have indications that the Russians intend to supply heavier and more sophisticated multiple launch rocket systems in the very near future," Pentagon spokesman Steve Warren said July 25.
Warren suggested Russia had moved the weapons close to the Ukrainian border and said that Moscow could transfer the hardware to the rebels “at any time, at any moment.”
A day earlier, the U.S. State Department said it had evidence that Russia is firing artillery to attack the Ukrainian military and that Moscow intends to provide more heavy weaponry to the separatists.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry on July 25 accused Washington of "unfounded public insinuations" that Moscow is arming the rebels.
Still waiting for word on potential EU sanctions. Latest from our news desk:
EU leaders are expected to agree on restrictions to exporting oil technology as part of a new sanctions package targeting Russia while excluding the Russian gas sector from the punitive measures, according to EU sources.
EU members have shown hesitance to impose penalties impacting Russian gas, which Europe relies on heavily for energy.
The exclusion of gas-extraction technology from the sanctions improves the likelihood that EU leaders will agree on a sanctions package punishing Russia for its role in the Ukraine crisis, according to a diplomatic source in Brussels.
EU Council President Herman van Rompuy said in an official letter sent to EU heads of state that the gas exclusion is based on "the need to preserve EU energy security," according to two sources who read from the letter.
From our news desk:
Russia has accused the U.S. administration of a "smear campaign" over Ukraine.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on July 25 that the U.S. State Department was trying to influence international opinion through "unfounded public insinuations" that Moscow is supplying pro-Russian separatists with weapons and firing on eastern Ukraine.
It said Washington "fully shares the responsibility for the bloodshed" in eastern Ukraine after backing an "unconstitutional coup" in Kyiv.
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said at a briefing on July 24 that Russia was firing artillery across the border into Ukraine to target Ukrainian military positions.
She also said that Washington has "new evidence" that Russia intends to provide more heavy weaponry to pro-Russian separatists fighting Ukrainian government forces in the east.
Very powerful front page from "Novaya Gazeta"
More from our news desk on the latest leaked SBU tape:
Ukrainian security services have released what they claim is an intercepted telephone conversation implicating pro-Russian separatists in the July 17 downing of a Malaysian airliner over eastern Ukraine.
The recording, posted to YouTube on July 25 by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), purports to reveal a conversation between rebel commander Igor Bezler and a separatist two minutes before the plane was shot down.
The separatist tells Bezler that a plane is flying overhead, to which the commander replies by asking whether it is a spy plane or “a big one,” the SBU alleges.
Bezler then purportedly tells the militant to relay the information "up the chain."
The SBU had earlier published what it called three intercepted conversations that it says proves the rebels were responsible for shooting down the plane.