this is a special edition of "out front: shot down malaysia 17." good evening, i'm erin burnett. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world tonight. this is the second hour of our special edition of "out front." breaking news, here at cnn, we are just getting new pictures of the crash site from our crew on the ground. it is the reality of what investigators are facing on the ground. bodies of the 298 passengers that lost their lives in body bags along with debris and luggage.

we do not know how many bodies at this time have been transported and we don't yet know exactly where they are being transported to. it was just two days ago malaysia airlines flight 17 en route from amsterdam to kuala lumpur and malaysia was shot down by a russian made surface-to-air missile in ukraine. our reporters are around the world covering the story. chris cuomo in donetsk, ukraine. elise labott. our foreign correspondent, elise, is with us. i want to go to "new day's" chris cuomo who was at the crash site earlier today as well. elise, let me start you because i know you have breaking news for us tonight. >> well, erin, you know our barbara starr and jim sciutto and others have been reporting over the last few days the initial assessment of the intelligence community was that this russian-made buk missile, this sa-11 surface-to-air

missile was sent from russia into ukraine in coming days. and now u.s. officials are saying they believe that to definitely be the case. what's new, erin, is that they believe that since shoot-down of malaysia flight 17, that that launcher and other missiles that were operational have been brought back across the border, and the implication here, erin, is russia is trying to scrub the scene of the crash site and cover up evidence that might implicate it in having supplied the missile to the separatists. they do not know whether russian operatives were in eastern ukraine and actually fired that missile, but what officials do know is that these separatists, if they fired it, had to have had some training from the russians. this is not, as we've been discussing, an operational system that is really good to go. officials say it doesn't matter, though, it doesn't matter whether russian officials actually fired the missile or

whether russia just gave the separatists a missile with an instruction manual and said, go to it. u.s. does believe russia has serious culpability here, erin. >> elise, you're saying the information now that you have is they actually are confirming that the missile system that they believe was used has now been transported back over into russia? >> that's right. they do have evidence that it's being brought back into russia. and, again, the implication is that russia is trying to cover up some evidence, and in a very tough phone call between secretary of state john kerry and foreign min strer lavrov today, secretary kerry expressed grave concern there was some tampering with the evidence and i think this is one of the things he was alluding to. i think you're going to see the u.s. laying out this case in the coming days, really pointing the finger not only at the separatists, but the russian involvement as well, erin. >> certainly begs the question, elise, though, of if the russians know that the u.s. knew, which they did, why would

they bring that back over the russian border? it sort of proves culpability. perhaps. is there any way that that could be brought over the border without russia approving of that? is there any way that could be a rebel-initiated thing to try to get rid of it? >> well, i mean, whatever the culpability is, the russian and separatists are in pretty close communication and clearly the belief is that they brought it -- that they brought it back over. this really does buttress what the ukrainians have been saying since the shoot-down of the plane. you know, the ukrainians had some video of this coming across of this missile system moving across. we had that missile system with one of the missiles actually missing that launcher system with the missile missing. but the u.s. officials i've been speaking to say that this is not only based on what they're hearing from ukrainians, but their own intelligence as well, erin. >> all right, elise, thank you very much. i want to go to ivan watson now in ukraine tonight. ivan, i know you had a chance to

speak to the prime minister of ukraine, now we have this new development that the u.s. is confirming that, indeed, the missile system they believe was responsible for shooting down the plane has now been brought back over into russian territory. this fits with exactly what you were told, doesn't it? >> reporter: yeah, that's right. the chief of ukraine's counterintelligence agency, he made the claim on saturday that no less than three of these buk m-1 missile systems had been brought into ukrainian territory and since the downing of mh-17 that all of them have since returned to russian territory. he went one step further in a briefing with journalists in kiev arguing that the missile system that he claims was used to bring down mh-17 was operated by russian nationals, fired by russian nationals. the ukrainian prime minister also said that he didn't believe that whoever pressed the button

was some drunken separatist rebel, but this had to be somebody who was trained who could handle the sophisticated piece of technology. the ukrainian government here has been building quite a compelling case against the separatists and against russia which it claims, arms, and trains and supports those separatists that they are ultimately responsible for bringing down flight mh-17. they've released videos, they've released photos of what they say are the buk m-1 missile systems that were moving around in eastern ukraine. they've released recordings of phone conversations that they claim are between rebels and russian handlers, both before and after the shooting down of the plane that they say proved that they had a hand in this. but we do also have to keep in mind that there is not only a hot war going on between the ukrainian government and the separatists, but also a very fierce information war under way between kiev, between the

separatists, and moscow as well with counterclaims and accusations and both sides have proven to be making exaggerated claims in the past. we can't take anybody's word at face value. but certainly it's important that the u.s. government now is coming up and stepping up and saying that it, too, has intelligence to back up these claims made by ukrainian intelligence officials earlier on saturday. erin? >> yes, they absolutely are. as elise reported on that new development tonight. i want to go to chris cuomo at the crash site earlier today, and chris, i, again, i know it's hard to ask you this question because so much of what you saw is something you'll never forget and something you don't want to talk about, but tell us, because the state of that crash scene matters so much for people understanding why it is so important to know who did this and packetly w exactly why, whe pulled that trigger. what did you see? >> reporter: the problem is the scene is so raw and there's no

accountability there, erin. let me help you out with a few things. first, it's 4:00 in the morning here right now. small arms fire is coming from this way. more troubling, we're hearing heavy artillery come from the direction of the crash site. now, that's a problem because that region is very hot with conflict and it may make it more difficult for the osce and investigators to get in there. so we'll keep monitoring that situation. in terms of what we saw there, the reason we took that footage that you're using on the show right now, the militants didn't want us to take it and we didn't understand why they didn't want us to take that footage. it would show what they're supposed to be doing responsibly here. we took it, anyway, because we weren't getting answers for where the bodies were going. and, you know, the team hadn't slept since thursday, so we weren't sure whether our eyes were deceiving us, but when we showed up, we couldn't believe how raw this site is, and i don't know any other word for it, again, the bodies that were exposed to elements and dogs that are in the area. how they were playing with the fuselage, the military there,

and joking around. the lack of dignity being accorded the dead. you know, erin, i'm watching the show. you're doing a brilliant job of getting all these different perspectives. you're hearing these big statements from important people. this is the most important crime scene in the world, and all eyes are on it, and we're really worried that evidence is being taken. two points to that, one, i've never covered a story that matters so much where there's so little presence as there is right now. the media's here. thankfully to document what's going on. but all these people saying they're so concerned, all these countries who are involved by having their citizens onboard this plane. the talk-to-action ratio here is really deplorable, and it matters because that scene has been corrupted, and while the experts say that's okay, they'll be able to recreate what happened, but what about the families? what about the dignity of their loved ones? what about their remains and their personal affects?

who's going to take care of that? it's not being done quickly enough, erin, and there's no excuse. >> that's the horrible part of this story. andrew stevens is now the other country most impacted by this outside the netherlands in kuala lumpur, malaysia, now had to deal with two horrific plane crashes in three months. mh-370 is missing and now 298 souls have lost they lives in eastern ukraine. andrew, where you are, what is happening? >> reporter: well, it's just gone 8:00 in the morning here, erin. we're at the airport where it is pretty much business as usual. not far from here, though, the meritt hotel is now the base for grieving families and also where family members, next of kin can get latest information. there is a growing sense of frustration across all levels of society here. chris talking there about the dignity of those victims in the plane. i'll add to that, here in

malaysia, erin, this is predominantly an islamic country and one of the beliefs of islam is the bodies of the deceased need to be buried within 24 hours. we're now heading toward the fourth day of the downing of mh-17. and the government here is pushing hard to try to get that through to the site so the remains can be gathered to be brought back to families here in malaysia, indeed, families across the world, grieving families across the world. the prime minister naji razek, the second wife of his grandfather was on that flight. she was a very, very widely respected woman across society here in malaysia, so the prime minister, himself, is directly affected by what's happened and he's sent a senior delegation, they're in the air now, erin, to kiev as one of his people told us yesterday, that he thinks that just with eye-to-eye contact with people on the ground in kiev, at least, to try

to get movement on getting to the crash site, to get those -- to get those bodies, get those remains and also get the investigation under way to find out, establish what really happened. the government keeps on coming back to this the perpetrators need to be brought to justice to get some sort of closure in malaysia among the countries. some 444 malaysian nationals including the 15 crew members on the flight. as you say, erin, this is less than five months after the strategy of mh-370, still a complete mystery, still no evidence there. a double blow. and the people here continue to ask, why us? >> andrew, thank you. "out front" next, the breaking news. mounting evidence that russia has been tampering with evidence. more on that coming up. plus a dutch cyclist claims he was booked on malaysia airlines flight 17 and 370. and the flight 17 passengers. the people who died in the crash and the ones who didn't get on the plane. [male vo] inside this bag is 150 years

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we continue with our breaking news coverage of downed malaysia airlines flight 17. crash site called the biggest crime scene if the world. "out front" tonight, david sussee, "quest means business," richard quest. also joining us from washington, cnn aviation analyst, veteran pilot, miles o'brien. let me start with you, miles, as you join this conversation. we have new headlines in from renee marsh, transportation reporter, saying the ntsb just saying -- the ntsb investigators, that implies there's one at this point, is now in kiev. obviously that's a far cry from being at the crash site, but there are international investigators coming into the country. what's your sense, miles, of if

given what we're hearing is happening at the scene, their ability to reconstruct what happens? >> well, it gets harder by the day. things are, you know, frankly, literally decaying, and the evidence won't last there forever. of course, there is this other issue of tampering with the evidence. where are the flight data recorders? the flight data recorder, the cockpit voice recorder. could there be a key piece of wreckage that suddenly goes missing? all these things come into mind when the chief suspects in the crime are those that are guarding the wreckage, itself. so having one ntsb investigator in kiev, that's better than nothing, but we're a long way from a proper investigation. >> and david, to that point, you know, you and mary swere talkin about this earlier, in a way to perhaps assuage some of the fears. if people tried to tamper with the evidence, it would be in a sense impossible to do. in this case, you're not going to be able to hide what kind of missile hit it, you're not going

to be able to hide how it hit it or from where. no matter what is removed? >> there's not a lot of mystery here. to destroy that type of evide e evidence, you'd have to have a backhoe and tractor and driving over the stuff. i mean, right now you can see, i can see from the photographs, it's probably very well-documented, in fact, you can see from the photographs pretty much what happened to the aircraft in the sequence of those events. so it's a matter of putting it together. i think what's important here, though, is when it becomes a criminal case, which it appears that it certainly will, when that happens, and you have to have a chain of evidence and you have to have where it went from, the chain of custody, who took it, and what did it and was it altered? those are the things that get thrown out of court that can change the results of a court case. >> and richard, up of the things that's so crucial on this word, what kind of act this was, act of war, terrorist attack, what was it? was this truly unintentional, meant to hit a cargo military plane, or did they not even check to see what they were going to hit? that could be a very, very crucial point. is there anything here that would show that? on the black box, anything that

would show whether day tried to figure out whether this plane was siecivilian? >> what you would get from the cockpit voice recorder if there had been discussion, any callout, if they heard from the ground, anything like that. but i can't see that that's going to be an issue here. i mean, no, but the core point is, as lawyers would say, the facts speak for themselves. they shot down a civil aviation aircraft. therefore, by definition, the crime has been committed. >> right, no, it is a crime, but i'm just saying in other cases, these things have not necessarily been called terrorist acts. some are calling this an act of terror. >> right. >> and there becomes the importance of did they know what they were doing or not even care to find out? >> right. and if you -- where we get the cockpit voice recorder and data recorder, you'll get an idea of whether there was any attempt to communicate, attempt to find out what was going on. they will get the data. they will get the recorders.

the question is who gets them first. >> and that is a crucial question, because that information might be on that crash site. it could be tampered with. >> well, it could be. that could be, but i think it's important to look bigger at this. we're looking at what happened right there at the site that it was launched. was it a mistake, was it intentful? whatever it was, the big question is, why was it there in the first place? why wasn't there -- not because malaysia air did a mistake. it's like saying i'm going down the highway, it's legal to do that. if you're going down the highway, there's a huge hurricane going through, and you make the decision to go through that, that's a little digit. you have to consider those things. there's no hurricane warning system on this highway. didn't work. we have one. it's there. an information system. that should have warned. it was designed in the 1940s. >> it would warn what? >> it would have warned the pilots, warned the airlines, tell them what's going on in that country. we rely on those countries to report their situation. we can't do that anymore. we have to have external

countries do that. >> okay. miles, a point you and i have talked about a bit over the past couple days, there were some airlines who felt this was no a place they wanted to fly and were not flying there. not all airlines. plenty of airlines going through this space. there were many that were not. >> some airlines are clearly smarter and better than others web it co when if comes to this kind of thing. they have better connections to security apparatus. they have a longer history dealing with conflicts and make those decisions on their own. captains make their own decisions as well. you know, it occurs to me, erin, that both malaysian incidents we've been talking about, these many months, just underscore the need for a robust international organization that not only looks after airspace and makes decisions on where airliners should and should not be, but also can come in and in an objective way conduct an investigation. both these malaysian incidents for desperate reasons just cry out for the creation of such an entity. we don't have such a thing right now. iko is not doing its job.

>> miles, if i -- >> i'm with miles on this. >> well -- go ahead. tell me why. >> because i've spent the last few days trying to get sense out of iko. iko has said specifically that it was not its responsibility to close the air over ukraine. it was ukraine's permission. euro control specifically told me it was not their responsibility. but you have left the responsibility with a country that has got deep military issues at the moment. >> a country which is dysfunctional. let's just say. whatever part of it is disfunction l at this point. >> remember, iko's purpose, in chicago convention, the purpose is to set standards and practices. those standards and practices are what need to be revised. not the organization. iko doesn't have enforcement, which in addition to what miles has said, they need to have the ability to investigate and report, but they also have to

have enforcement which they don't, and the new convention -- >> no countries are really ever going to give them that. >> it's high time that we had such an entity. >> i agree. >> whether it's iko or something else. we have two major incidents that have cried out for this. >> miles, how do you know when you're buying a ticket on an airplane whether the airline that you're looking at buying at is, you know, making these decisions with extreme caution? there have been reports, air france, air china, were all avoiding this, emirates, cafe pacific were not flying here. plenty of others were because day were technically allowed to do so. other cases, maybe the airlines who aren't flying here are doing something they shouldn't somewhere else. how would you know as a member of the buying public when you go to buy the ticket? avoid the cheap ticket? >> go to what i do, go to flightaware.com and look at the flight path for the last month on the flight you're about to go on. if they fly repeatedly over ukraine and don't want to do that, i wouldn't book that

flight. just as simple as that. >> we have to raise the bar generally. >> yeah. >> this is the issue here. and i'm, you know, iko on this was not fit for purpose. >> that i agree with, absolutely. >> iko was not fit for purpose. in fact, i'll go further. the european aviation infrastructure, which something i do know something about, single european skies they've been trying to get for some years, that wasn't pfit for purpose because that airspace should have been closed. >> aviation, by definition, is a global enterprise. and to have it regulated in a patchwork fashion, especially in this era, is never going to work. >> never going to work, but, of course, it's so hard when you look at countries around the united states, buying into global edicts that would supersede your own national laws as not supported. "out front" next, the world's largest crime scene is how people have been calling this site. why are investigators then

getting such limited access? and new questions about russia's involvement in the crash. here's the bottom line. is it -- does it go all the way to the kremlin?

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and welcome back to our special two-hour live edition of "out front." flight 17 was shot down more than two days ago but investigators still do not have full access to the crash site. our renee marsh reports tonight that an ntsb investigator has arrived in kiev from the united states. and is now en route to the crash site in the eastern part of the country where there are reports of looting, gunfire has been

heard nearby as we can report this evening. the grim task of removing the bodies has just started. it's unclear, though, a this point who actually has been removing them and where they are sending them to. the prime minister of the united kingdom, david cameron has been slamming russian president vladimir putin over the plane. and the "sunday times" cameron writes, "if the evidence does conclude that russia was involved, "this is the direct result of russia deestablishing a sovereign state." our phil black reports from the crash site tonight. >> reporter: this is where mh-17 scarred the earth with the greatest force and heat. the wreckage that struck here was big. both of the boeing 777's engines and wings, it's likely this is where the fuel load burned off as well. the blaze so intense, metal components melted into the ground. down the road, other big pieces of the aircraft mark the farming landscape. but the smaller debris here also holds real power.

some are the commonplace possessions of travelers everywhere, but there is also the more personal. giving little insight into the lives of those who fell with the plane. these were people from around the world with no connection to ukraine's conflict, but their bodies now lie across this war zone. their positions are marked with sticks and white cloth. most of the injuries are too terrible to show, or even talk about. pro-russian militants are in control here. some show curiosity, but there's no obvious intention of quickly recovering the bodies or securing the aircraft. this is a strange, eery experience. walking through the debris field of a passenger jet. the remains of its crew and passengers are everywhere, and yet there is no one here trying to work out what happened. no one here to take responsibility for this. the militants' leaders say they

are deliberately not altering the site so it remains in tact for ukrainian and international experts to inspect. they're blaming the central government in kiev for not getting those experts here sooner. until both sides act together, there can be little dignity for mh-17's victims. phil black, cnn, in eastern ukraine. >> richard quest is with me along with cnn aviation analyst mary schiavo. and richard, watching that piece from phil black makes me think of something chris cuomo is reporting. he said, look, i didn't see looting, myself, but i didn't see the things, high-priced things. didn't see the watches. didn't see those sorts of things. there's been reports of credit cards being looted. it's hard to imagine that that can be happening, but it appears that it is. people are looting from the dead. >> i don't think there's any doubt. you know, let's say it as it is. we've heard reports of it. in the early days, it's been there. we've heard other people talking

about what's not there. it's taking place. i mean, we saw people standing on the wreckage as if it's some sort of amusement park in the early hours of this incident. so this is -- it is unspeakable. >> sadly, for accidents outside the united states and the iron fist of the fbi and the ntsb, looting is more common than not. i've even had parts of planes crashed in other countries then have come back for sale on the secondary parts market. of course, they're bogus parts. >> they try to sell them in the secondary air parts market? >> sure. sure. >> the -- that's why -- the thing i remember from lockerbie, if you go back to lockerbie, within minutes, within hours, what's that picture? the famous picture of lockerbie is the nose cone on the hillside in scotland. but what's also in that picture

are policemen standing next to it. the protection of the scene. the dignity of those involved. >> and our reporters, i mean, we have seen reporters that are there. we've been talking to the investigators saying they've gotten slightly better access but don't have full access. elise labott is reporting on developments from the state department at least. >> you heard today secretary of state john kerry having a very tough call with russian foreign minister lavrov about the need for a credible investigation and making sure that the evidence was secure and not tampered with and getting access to those investigators. now state department coming out with a statement from spokesperson jen psaki saying u.s. is very concerned about the lack of access, the safe and unfettered access for the osce investigators that you've been talking to. and even today they got in, but it was a few hours, a very small area. and these reports of bodies

being moved, evidence being tampered with, parts of the plane and other potential evidence being tampered with. parts of the plane being hauled away. in all, talking about the idea of a credible investigation. and, erin, this just goes to what we have been talking about earlier about the u.s. being concerned that some of these separatists with russian orders, acquiescence, are moving some f those parts of the debris, of the plane back into russia to try to hide evidence of any culpability. >> richard? you're trying to -- >> i just want to on this geopolitical point, if i may, erin. >> yes, yes. >> prime minister cameron tonight writing in the british newspapers along this -- you heard what he said. he says, if president putin does not change his approach to ukraine, then europe and the west must fundamentally change our approach. >> what does that mean, though? because david cameron, obviously is very close with the united states, but you have others in

europe who have been very hesitant to really up the ante against russia. angela merkel in germany. it's very difficult. huge trade relationship. does this really change the game? people can say it changes the game, richard. when it comes to the rubber meets the road, does it? >> yes. >> this really will change? >> is it going to do what some would want? maybe not. there is no question that this is the quantum leap. this is the one that moves things forward. because the electorates will demand it. the dutch certainly. >> certainly in the netherlands. >> you've got -- there's ten people from britain. there's 27 people from australia. you know, this is when democracy and the democratic sort of view, people say, what are you doing, prime minister? we want to bring our people home to -- >> they say that. mary, you've dealt with these kinds of investigations.

they up the ante, all of a sudden gas prices start rising. there are repercussions on the other side. >> it never ceases to amaze me how quickly people forget about these terrible aviation tragedies and -- the other thing about the site that's important to know, this wreckage belongs to someone. these are someone's possessions. in the u.s. we have a law and there are several companies that do this, they catalog every single piece, in these three-ring binders, binder after binder of what they find. some of these possessions actually get returned and people are allowed to have them returned and the plane belongs to malaysia's insurance companies. they're carting off the property of the people. there are a lot of angles to look at this. it's not a simple case of they want to hide the evidence and take it into russia. they're stealing. that's yet another crime compounding the site. >> anybody who's going to this site and seeing one of these bodies which we are the not going to show, and taking a watch from them, is an animal.

>> i agree. >> last week, we saw, in fact, exactly a week ago, we saw president putin there, angela merkel there, in the middle of the world cup final. can you imagine angela merkel now being prepared to watch a football match next to vladimir putin? >> absolutely not, but pictures and actions aren't always the same, but let's see. perhaps you will be right. maybe you really will be. could be a quantum leap this time. thanks to both of you. "out front" next, the buk missile system, now the united states says they confirmed was, indeed, used in taking down this airliner. what exactly can it do? and where did the pro-russian rebels get it from? and the passengers of flight 17. the people who died on that plane. and those who were going to get on and didn't at the last moment. the wonder of summer is that

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breaking news on flight mh-17. u.s. officials tell cnn they believe that a buk missile system, that's what it's called, b-u-k, it's a surface-to-air missile, was smuggled into ukraine prior to flight 17 being shot down. those officials say they believe it was moved back to russia after the attack. that was the breaking news tonight. that they say they have evidence that that system was then moved

back over the russian border. in the past day or so. the implication, of course, that russia is trying to tamper with the evidence. now, the buk missile system is something we've been hearing a lot about over the past couple of days. tom foreman is in washington to take a closer look at exactly what it is. and tom, what is the buk? again, it's spelled b-u-k. what's it capable of? >> it is a four-man unit. it has four ready to fire missiles up on top. it can set up and fire very quickly and move away after firing very quickly. those missiles have a tremendous amount of power. let's bring one in here and talk about that. each one is about 16 feet long. we're showing them a little bit smaller to make it all fit. it will weigh about 1,500 pounds. and it has a 154 -pound warhead on it. that means 154 pounds of high explosive. it doesn't actually have to hit the target. it just has to get close to it, but with electronic guidance systems, it can get very close

and it can do it in a short period of time. 22 seconds from the time its radar acquires a target to the time a missile like this can be launched. look at the speed. it travels at a top speed of 2,684 miles per hour. more than three times the speed of sound. that means even if it were fired from 30 miles away, it could have hit a plane like this in 40 seconds or less. that means people onboard would absolutely never even see it coming. >> tom, thank you very much. and never even see it coming, perhaps some solace, of course, as we have been learning, perhaps, some on this plane, unfortunately, afterwards may have been aware something catastrophic had happened. i want to bring in our military analyst, rick franrona, political analyst, josh rogin, senior national security and correspondent for "the daily beast." tom reported on these missiles. it's very difficult, because on one hand there's the emphasis on, look, you can move it around

in five minutes, shoot it very quickly. it's incredibly mobile. then on the other hand, there's the fact it is an incredibly sophisticated missile system, though it's not the most sophisticated in the russians' arsenal. you know a lot about this. how easy is it for someone to train and operate the buk? >> six months. >> six months. >> the army uses about a six-month training period for someone to operate a system this complicated. now, to believe this was given to the separatists and they were able to operate this just defies logic for me. the russians either had to take them to russia, train them, and take them back. so we're talking about a six-month time. or the russians sent advisers in, advisers in quotes, to run the isle f system for them. >> your belief they sent the advisers in themselves. when you look at the length of the conflict, there isn't the six-month leave time. >> as we get more intelligence

being released, i'm coming more and more to the conclusion the russians must have operated this system. >> josh, what does that mean if it indeed turns out to be the case, if it was russians that actually operated it? i'm probably using the wrong word, but push the button, pull trigger as opposed to a pro-russian group? >> according to intercepts, this was operated by rebels in the ground in close coordination with russian intelligence officials. either way, the russians have their hand prints on this. okay, let's say that's the case. question becomes, what do we do? the problem is even if we prove that the russians are kplis complicit and causing trouble in eastern ukraine, of course they are, it's not clear if they increase sanctions, as some are calling for, are going to work. it doesn't seem like this is ever going to be as important to the u.s. and europe as it is is to vladimir putin. raising the sanctions on russia and solving the problem of what's going on in eastern ukraine. there will be a lot of work to

discov discover who exactly is responsible. the russians are involved, increasing their presence and military support including high-end weapon systems in eastern ukraine. they're not going to stop based on the sanctions so then we have to figure out what to do after that. >> colonel, this is where my question comes in. isn't this a case, if you can become a very big country with a very big arsenal and have nuclear weapons and obviously there's all sorts of other countries you see that might be looking at this model, that you can do essentially whatever you want, because you're not going to have a country like the united states be willing to engage in some sort of military conflict or proxy war with a country like russia. >> this is the calculous vladimir putin is going to do right now. he's going to say, what can i get away with? what are the americans going to do, what is europe going to do? what kind of sanctions am i going to have to live through? can i continue on my goal to reincorporate eastern ukraine like i did crimea back into the russian empire? >> and what do you think the result of that calculous will be? will sanctions, even souped up

sanctions that are much farther than anyone currently thinks the united states would go on vladimir putin, himself, for an example, would that do it ? >> not a russian expert, but he's an old kbg guy, intel guy. i think he'll get his backup. he may temporarily back off but that's not going to change his long-term goal. i thing k he believes he can wa us out. we change course every four to eight years. >> even if he backs off slightly, his eye is still on the prize? >> he can wait us out. you saw the obama administration sanctions they released this week were carefully crafted not to affect u.s. businesses. the european businesses are carefully crafted not to affect european businesses. are the u.s. and europe ready to impose the kind of sanctions that would have blowback for the u.s. economy, for the european economy? vladimir putin's calculation is no. so given that, we have to make a

decision in the west either we're going to put the sanctions on that would actually pressure him, which we have shown no willingness to do, or have to negotiate with him and have to find a deal, not the current deal, but another deal that allows them to have a face-saving exit from ukraine. >> which means giving them part of ukraine. >> or at least giving them control and influence in part of ukraine. that's clearly what they want. that's essentially what they're going to have to get if they're going to stop and the colonel's right, they are not going to start ever. this is an existential issue for vladimir putin. >> thanks very much for both of you. quick point for those around the world watching, look back at the u.s.s.r., the second biggest group was was ukrainians. very important part in terms of how they perceived their country to be. "out front" next, flight 17's passengers. we look at the people who lost their lives on the plane and those who just narrowly avoided the disaster. really... so our business can be on at&t's network for $175 dollars a month? yup. all five of you for $175.

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welcome back to our special two-hour edition of malaysia 17. for all those around the world who are watching this and feeling sad, feeling lonely,

feeling afraid, these are just a touch of what those who are directly impacted by this are feeling they are in shock of what has happened. and some of them, a twist of fate. they were supposed to be on this plane and narrowly avoided it. deborah is out front with two people, one who was and one who should have been on flight 17. >> if it disappears, this is what it looked like. posting what is believed to be a photo of malaysia airlines flight 17 on his facebook page an hour before takeoff. the dutch man making a dark joke referring to missing airlines flight 370 which vanished from radar in march. his is one. only known photos, shot down in the rebel held area of ukraine. the missing flight was very much on this person's mind.

tunneled hash tag feeling a little nervous, he posted video purported to be the inside of flight 17. listen as the flight attendant prepares the cabin. >> in the final stages of boarding and cargo loading and again to ensure that there are [ inaudible ] flight to kuala lumpur. >> this woman is still greig her brother who vanished a board flight 370. she now lost her step daughter on flight 17. then the married couple, both flight attend yanlts. the wife allegedly swapped shifts off flight 370 and survived. but her husband swapped shifts on to flight 17. sadly he died along with the other 297 passengers and crew. there are others who are counting their blessings thanks to a chance decision or a twist

of fate that kept them off the doomed flight. >> i feel like i've been given a second chance. so hopefully we will geet there safely and i will see my family again. >> izzy, her husband and baby were bumped off the full flight. >> i feel physically sick. i was like -- from the hague coming to the airport. >> also supposed to be on flight 17, this man and his bride. after a five and a half week honeymoon, they switched flights to return to work without jet lag. >> feeling lucky but at the same time our hearts bleed for these families, expecting their loved ones to come home. >> stories of improbable loss and survival. each one resonates because each one reminds us how fine the line is between what was and what might have been. deborah feyerick, cnn new york. >> something that gets all of us

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july 17th, the day malaysia airlines flight 17 was shot out of the sky, shares an anniversary with the so mysterious crash of flight twa 800. it exploded off the shores of long island in new york shortly after takeoff from jfk.

many suspected terrorism at the time andle still question whether the government came to the right conclusion in saying that it was not terrorism. there were 230 people on board that plane. all lost their lives. the twa tragedy is the subject of a cnn special report which comes up next. at 11:00, our news coverage of malaysia airlines flight 17 continues. that's all for now. thank you so much for joining us. // 18 years ago this week twa flight 800 exploded in the sky over the shores of long island. it was bound for paris with 230 people on board. no one survived. the suspicion of terrorism was almost immediate. many eyewitnesses described a streak of light heading toward the plane before it blew up. in the weeks, the months and then years afterwards, the biggest and most intense investigation in aviation