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, 2014Ben 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
Putin: Russia must strengthen military capability to counter NATO activity in Eastern Europe -Reuters
— Katie Stallard (@skystallard) July 22, 2014
Putin:Russia'll respond "adequately & proportionately" to NATO approachment to RUS borders http://t.co/rsOmx9HUwa pic.twitter.com/tf8yweIAmF
— Ryskeldi Satke (@RyskeldiSatke) July 22, 2014
Protecting threatened ethnic Russians was not the main agenda in Ukraine,the real obsession in the Kremlin is NATO expansion,accord to Putin
— Ryskeldi Satke (@RyskeldiSatke) July 22, 2014
"I can't comment on who is in control here...", OSCE observer #MH17 pic.twitter.com/ePo5uwoMIA
— Mircea Barbu (@mirceabarbu) July 22, 2014
Putin: Russia needs to protect itself from NATO, prowling around eastern Europe
— Neil MacFarquhar (@NeilMacFarquhar) July 22, 2014
Absolutley unreal!! #OSCE team wasn't aware thar there's a nearby site (cockpit), one I& other journos have been to ages ago. WoW!!! #MH17
— Mircea Barbu (@mirceabarbu) July 22, 2014
EU foreign ministers have still not agreed on #Ukraine conclusions. will continue to draft them after lunch which starts now. #Russia
— Rikard Jozwiak (@RikardJozwiak) July 22, 2014
RFE/RL's news desk has issued this item on a NATO meeting in Warsaw today:
Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski says "the Russia-Ukraine conflict is Europe's most important security challenge since the end of the Cold War."
Komorowski said that what is at stake in the conflict is "not only the survival of a sovereign and democratic Ukrainian state, but also the credibility of the European order based on the principles of respect for territorial integrity and nonuse of force -- and the threat of force -- in international relations."
Speaking at a meeting of NATO countries from Central and Eastern Europe, he said strengthening the alliance's eastern flank is "fundamental."
The presidents of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania met today in Warsaw to discuss the fallout from the Ukraine crisis and Russia's annexation of Crimea in March.
(AFP, rp.pl)
Here is satellite trajectory of #FlightMH17 and the missile US says shot it down. @NatSecCNN @cnnbrk pic.twitter.com/ijsUM1nCjZ
— Barbara Starr (@barbarastarrcnn) July 22, 2014