now let's break the set. thanks for joining us here in the international i live in moscow my colleague sean thomas you've been here if i was continuing with the breaking news coverage certainly it is eight o'clock here in the morning in moscow seven o'clock in ukraine where this incident took place and the news teams have been working around the clock to try and get the latest information as the news story continues to dominate this morning's world headlines the investigation is not one to find what caused the malaysia airlines passenger plane to crash in eastern ukraine all two hundred ninety eight people on board the boeing seven seven seven were killed it's reported that eight c. children were on the flight including three infants the plane is in a route from amsterdam to kuala lumpur it was flying over the part of eastern

ukraine where kiev is carrying out its military crackdown against anti-government forces it was then that it disappeared from radar shortly before it was due to enter russian airspace and the ukrainian president petro poroshenko cues to antigovernment fighters of the plane with a rocket calling the incident a terrorist attack but militia groups deny this they say they don't have access to weapons capable of taking out a plane at that altitude particularly the height of this one was flying and let's take a moment to look at the flight path of m.h. seventeen it took off from amsterdam's schiphol airport at ten fifteen g.m.t. heading for kuala lumpur it flew over the netherlands and then across germany and poland as well when it entered ukrainian airspace passing over volatile eastern ukraine the boeing seven seven seven was fifty kilometers from the russia ukraine border when it lost contact with air traffic control it crashed near the village of

gravity. now the nationalities over the majority of people on board the crashed malaysian airliner have been identified. one hundred fifty four to be exact what dutch another thirty eight victims were malaysian including the fifteen crewmembers also on the plane were nine britons four germans three filipinos and one canadians so worst hit has been the netherlands which has lost over one hundred fifty of its citizens probably boyko reports from amsterdam schiphol airport where the relatives of the victims are now coming to terms with what happened. that malaysian airlines flight was twinned with. flag carrying airline k l m and the majority of the passengers as you said were in fact dutch citizens one hundred fifty four dots passport holders twenty three malaysian citizens as well as passengers from australia and europe the scenes here amsterdam's schiphol airport

where that ill fated plane took off from or just of complete despair desperation from the families seeing them trying to get information about what took place and why it's hard to imagine what's going through their minds how they're feeling but of course it's such a sensitive situation that they are. being here at the airport for some time whisked away by police to an undisclosed location on the other side of the airport but we were able to get there and see them all gathering there again the mood just completely sold a lot of police guarding these people because they're obviously just in complete and utter despair at the moment but the police keeping press at all. we were told to move away as quickly as possible and the scene is very much clear of journalists so they're kept well away but the relatives bearing the majority of the law says and trying to establish what happened to their loved ones and why.

the crash right now you sent us this report. the situation in this kilometer that is around is that you can see several pieces of the aircraft and also several bodies that the situation is really complicated and it's a tragedy when we talk with a fireman they say that they been implied no one and what they're talking about the numbers it's almost three hundred people who were in this aircraft the last information that the airlines heart is when they were in the air in on air and they didn't have any more information on their start the government a korean government and the local government to talk and who are accused each other

about who was the responsible militia antique here said that they don't have the capability to shoot an aircraft who is in a distance of ten thousand meters and they were saying that is the ukrainian army forces who shot down this aircraft of my lashon airlines who are coming from amsterdam and to kuala lumpur this situation right now the government open an investigation and is clear that this accident has important political connotations because it is not just an accident of an aircraft because of the bad moreover it's a situation that is very important because here very close to the border in the last days there was a big comeback between the militia. and the granny armed forces as you heard from francisco's report some very graphic images coming from the scene you can't imagine

the locals living there what they saw the plane flew over their heads and then hit the ground this is how they describe the moment it all came down. but i saw a piece of the plane fall about four hundred meters from my apartment when i went to check it out i saw scattered bodies from a distance it looked like debris was falling but as it turned out it was people falling out of the aircraft i heard the noise of the planes and thought the bombardment would start soon and i also heard shooting somewhere from above years ago was the way used to the sound of shooting here but then there was a loud clap when i looked up and threw something fording moving the flow through into pieces the main part of knowledge here really exploded or parts of the plane were falling onto the roof of our house i came to help my brother puts out the fire and earlier in a phone conversation with the u.s. president barack obama president vladimir putin stressed that an unconditional cease fire must be declared in ukraine with immediate effect meanwhile the leaders

of the self-proclaimed don yes republican eastern ukraine they've announced a humanitarian truce will be implemented to allow full investigation into the cause of the crash and ukrainian authorities claimed russia could be involved in striking down the plane but the kremlin has dismissed the accusations as stupidity. to me to putin has said that ukraine should bear the responsibility for the tragedy the russian leader stressed it would not have happened if there was peace in the country. we have to do everything in our capability to make sure an objective picture of what happened is made public and known to people in our country as well as the people of ukraine and the whole world what happened is completely unacceptable and no one has the right to walk away without making a jacked of conclusion of what happened first i want to point out that this tragedy wouldn't have happened if there was peace on the ukrainian land at least if the

fighting hadn't had resumed in the south east without any doubt the state on whose territory this happened must stand responsible for this horrible tragedy. data from flight tracking service flight radar twenty four suggesting the plane deviated from its route of the route passenger planes normally take over ukraine is this one we can see on the map right now from a. two part of the malaysian plane actually went over a larger part of the troubled country and the reason for the change though still not russia's interfax news agency quoting a source in the russian aviation industry suggests that president putin's plane could have actually been the target of the attack it is claimed that the russian leaders jet went over warsaw at the exact same height as the doomed boeing just forty minutes later a spokesperson for russia's federal air transport agency refused to comment saying it never discusses details of the routes taken by the president and other top

officials. from the interstate aviation committee says an international commission must now be allowed to investigate. understanding the difficulty of the situation in the area of the incident we consider it necessary to create an international investigation commission which could be established under the authority of the international civil aviation organization and to pass on to it all the flight recorders one after another major carriers are diverting their planes around ukrainian airspace among them the likes of air france. or europe's transport agency euro control has advised all e.u. carriers to avoid ukraine's space. now joining us live from berlin here on the program good to see you peter the international response to this has certainly been a swift. well yes it has we've seen outpourings of grief from

here in europe obviously the fact that this flight originated out of amsterdam's schiphol is one of the major hubs for european europeans flying to other parts of the world and there were so many people from different nationalities on board this flight we've heard messages of condolence from from a lot of different leaders we are expecting further statements as friday progresses i can tell you from here in lynn it's eleven am local time that's in. about five hours time there had been an already agreed press conference to be given by chancellor angela merkel now this was supposed to be her end of parliament wrap up this is what we did last time this is what we intend to do in the next parliament while it seems like this will be completely dominated by. the events that have unfolded with this tragic playing the plane incident that's gone down in the east of ukraine we're also expecting further statements from the prime minister mr

rooter now he had given a statement yesterday on a statement on thursday and which he said that there was so little known and this was really the what was coming out from european leaders on thursday they wanted to find out they would be able to establish what had happened because so little was known there was so many different people in their countries wanting to find out what happened to loved ones as we look at those numbers one hundred fifty four dutch people. nine british four germans four belgians other nationalities involved as well this is become a truly international moment of grief the tragedy which is befall in this this flight as we heard from my colleague polly boyko this was also a flight that was in conjunction with k l m the major dutch airlines just explain just why there was so many dutch. people onboard the flight and while we saw those

horrific pictures of piles and piles of passports that had been edited had been retrieved from the from the downed plane just really horrific sites unfortunately some pictures had emerged online where people are taking photographs of the actual photograph page of the passport and could clearly identify who those people worst as dutch nationals in terms of what we're going to see coming up and what we have seen david cameron the british prime minister held a meeting on thursday in which with senior government members in london where they try to decide what their next move was going to be we are going to see a u.n. security council meeting in new york later on friday that was at the request of the of the british governments they said they were needed to discuss further at security council level what's going on with this aircraft as well as the wider. implementations of what's currently happening in ukraine but in terms of flights

we're really seeing right now if you go on any any web site they'll show you what planes are in the air you're seeing a real empty space around ukraine is a line from across europe and across the world are avoiding actively avoiding ukrainian airspace and we are hearing from euro control that the whole eastern area of eastern ukraine is the whole eastern area of ukraine is now a no fly zone no commercial airlines will be traveling over that particular part of the country. but yes this really is a tragedy that's affected everybody around the world the amount of nationalities that were on board means that it's not just a tragedy for the ukrainian people the way this jets gone down not just for the dutch where the originated all the malaysians where it was headed so many different people from so many nationalities on board this flight all of them now touched by this tragedy and to this tragedy i continue breaking news here on r.t. international or peter all of em by giving us the update the malaysia airlines

passenger plane that crashed in eastern ukraine nearly three hundred people on board peter thank you for that. correspondents are covering this tragedy all over europe in ukraine and also in russia as well. is on the russia ukrainian border here are some graphic images in her report so just a bit of a warning for you judging by the pictures that it's a miracle that it hasn't hit any of the houses any of the residential houses located in that area at least we do not have any confirmation that regard representatives from self-proclaimed donetsk people's republic are said to have recovered the black boxes the flight data recorders now whether or not they will be handing them over to moscow as initial reports suggested or. we cannot say with certainty however the prime minister of the self-proclaimed people's republic did say they're going to declare a truce for several days in order to make it easier for the investigations take

place and indeed ukrainian officials have said that they're launching an investigation as well as a criminal case into this incident. international assistance. in ukraine russia was among the first ones to offer assistance that came from the ministry of emergencies the u.s. has also said that they're willing to help out and there were already voices being heard from the e.u. officials for saying that an international investigation into this tragedy is needed. before as there are now the boeing seven seven seven is the world's largest twin jet airliner it was launched in one thousand nine hundred five and has a capacity of up to four hundred forty passengers this particular plane has a bit of a creepy history conspiracy theorists would love this one the plane's very first flight was on july seventeenth one thousand nine hundred seven and its last exactly seventeen years later on july seventeenth and it was flight m h seventeen as well

of course two thousand and fourteen being the last day. in the meantime u.s. intelligence officials are claiming the plane was downed by a surface to air missile but have not specifically blamed either side vice president joe biden said a team of specialists will be sent to assist ukrainian authorities with the investigation more reaction from washington now with our correspondent guy nature. u.s. officials believe it was a surface to air missile that shot down the malaysian plane over ukraine the u.s. is not pointing the blame thinker just yet president obama spoke with the ukrainian leader. we can be sure that the blame game in the coming days and weeks is going to be vicious there are questions as to who had the capability to do this the ukrainian military certainly has the capability a launch like that would require a team of specialists as we hear from many experts and there is another question why was this malaysian airliner flying over the conflict zone we know that u.s. airlines had been avoiding the area for some time precisely because it was deemed

unsafe what kind of instructions that this plane would see from the ukrainian air traffic control or what exactly was happening inside the cockpit just moments before the tragedy hopefully we'll get more answers when investigators get hold of that black box of course one of the main questions at this point is who is going to investigate this the u.n. secretary general spoke out calling for an international investigation one of the concerns moving forward is that the investigation could eventually be politicized the blame game is full on in the media even before any facts have been established . it is going to go international investigators haven't even arrived at the crash site yet though the ukrainian authorities and some western media have been quick to blame fighters indeed some of the accusations are based on a tweet which was reportedly posted and then deleted from the social media account of the people's republic the tweet was allegedly a boast from anti-government forces that they had taken possession of an advanced

surface to air missile system capable of bringing down the plane however in an interview to the ukrainian media general prosecutor actually did night that ukrainian officials have also released what they say is an intercepted phone call between anti-government fighters and which they admit to shooting down the plane. and reports suggest a book surface to air missile system may have been used so over. all former soviet countries use the weapon including ukraine it has the ability to intercept up to twenty four targets at the same time within a distance of up to forty five kilometers and reaching an altitude of twenty five thousand kilometers it's projectiles travel at up to one thousand two hundred meters per second and as yet there is no confirmation that this missile system was the cause of the crash right now our correspondent now is taking us through some of the well now what about other call it a wild speculation that we're seeing now all across the media. a shocking tragedy

claiming the lives of nearly three hundred victims before and investigation even begins the lack of credible facts has it prevented many in the west from jumping to conclusions according to the sun newspaper the russian president is personally responsible for downing the malaysia airlines plane in ukraine and accusation some u.s. officials are doing their best to feel if it is a result of either separatist or russian action mistakenly believing there was a ukrainian warplanes i think there's going to be hell to pay and there should be there does seem to be a growing awareness that it probably had to be russian insurgents know how we determine that will require some forensics but then if there is evidence pointing in that direction the equipment had to come from russia either the missile came from it's a missile that came from russia or it was from the separatists and it's

a buccal style bissell i mean this came from russia russia has their fingerprints all over it either way why stop it fingers according to the daily mail russia's hands are soaked in blood some journalists conveniently camouflaged their blame with a question mark headline after headline asking if russia is to blame very few bothering to enquire about ukraine's possible role in the plane crash the new york times on the other hand reported ukraine's accusations leaving no room in this article for russia's position the u.s. nato and russia have all called for an investigation to be launched to establish the facts many media outlets have already created their narrative even if it means bypassing the truth marina port ny r.t. new york. and charlie mcgrath the founder of wide awake news believes the western media is already decided who is responsible for this event in light of the fact

that nearly three hundred people just died i hate to jump into bashing but since you asked the question i will this is a western backed regime inside a key appear change though is absolutely put there by the united states by the e.u. by the international monetary fund they say you know like i said the ukraine is not in the forefront of the people's mind in the west it's going to be now and when i was monitoring coverage on this earlier today they give you two options for what is happening inside ukraine it's either russia's fault or pro russian separatists fault you know they're forgetting the fact that ukraine right now the ukrainian government is showing civilians is showing in urban areas and hundreds and hundreds of civilians have already been killed at the killed at the hands of the ukrainian government so you know the fact that the media is not reporting the truth on the ground is not surprising at all because this is the western media who is toeing the western propaganda line so it seems ukraine's army does have some history of

shooting down a civilian planes but in a culture of a look back at a fatal mistake during military exercises back in two thousand and one. case has similarities to the incident indeed it happened thirteen years ago two thousand and one and the two were a russian plane was carrying sixty six passengers as well as twelve crew members and was flying from tel of based in israel to. now somewhere at about the black sea it happened the russian ground control center reported that its last contact with the chance to ask the plane disappeared from the reader and very shortly after it was revealed the plane went down into the sea of course of the investigation was launched and there were conflicting reports and i do remember there was one when the pilots the median plane that was flying above pretty much the same

area as he actually saw the russian jag before crashing into the sea and his so how the exploded the number one reason behind the incident was a possible terrorist attack that's what the investigators first thought but then it turned out that the crash happened due to ukrainian a missile that broad down the plane and that happened accidentally during military exercises military drills happening at the same time in a while basically this seems area now i have to mention that the ukrainian military forces really didn't know i had quite heated the that they were at fault however international. investigation was carried out in international society acknowledged that was the fact that there was a ukrainian ukrainian missed that brought down that russian plane and that happened back in two thousand and one. when you know coaching of a force there now earlier we discussed the malaysian airlines catastrophe with

anti-war coalition activist eugene. he told my colleague you know. the international investigation will be complicated because it will be in a war zone. we have a lot of issues i mean one of this is a war zone second who should handle the black box and which way it went where will it be done and who will be able to take it will be considered a neutral arbiter so i think this could it even though it is a land crash drag out in a in a very long passion the same way we saw the malaysian airliner that went down over the sea did because there are so many questions at stake regarding who exactly can be considered a neutral in the arbiter to really examine this situation and that i think is going to be highly up in the air as we move forward well that's that's another talking point of course and another one is that the wreckage is i spread over what is effectively a conflict so may need all of ukraine and how difficult is that going to make any investigation which starts by any investigating group. i think it's going to make

it very difficult because certainly in the context of a battlefield with the changing and fluid lines of the various interested parties and in fact just the difficulty of moving people who are neutral in and out and large numbers bringing specialists and how are you going to fly them in are you going to drive the men how are they going to come what will both sides are demanded in terms of making sure that people are who they say they are may think there are a lot of logistical difficulties here which i think really will deep in the blame game and i don't know every away because what's going to happen is because of these different difficulties the rumors will be much more right i think because it'll be very difficult for us to get a clear picture and it could take some time to really develop a true investigative team so put the facts together in your work with the anti war coalition what can you how can you see this playing out in this is if this turns out to be a tragic case of war or conflict crossing over into civilian lives really

from regions that have nothing to do with the situation happening in ukraine what type of a reaction is the public going to give i think certainly from my perspective and from our perspective there is the actions of the kiev government are certainly quite provocative and there's been any number of reports of significant war crimes there and certainly they're very exhaustive exam and severe as deep in the conflict i think in ukraine and around the world this is again another example of how these relentless drives and pushes to war and in this case when i was heavily motivated by the united states in the west pushing the ukraine to the brink because of their their clash or their differences with russia it should show us yet again that these militaristic postures lead to tragedies that war inherently breach tragedies and we don't really internalize that we'll continue to face situations you both like this and in other words. of course the instability and call flick on going in eastern ukraine certainly makes it difficult to confirm some of the claims and details that

continue to stream in here at r.t. international though using what we do know however we have managed to put together yesterday's events and quite a logical order for you at twelve fifteen pm local time flight m.h. seventeen with two hundred ninety eight passengers and crew on board to call from amsterdam airport on a scheduled trans continental flight to kuala lumpur. and for twenty one pm local time radio contact with the pilots of the malaysia airlines boeing seven hundred seven stopped and the jet disappeared from radar there was no warning or distress signal of any kind the jet was last recorded as an altitude of ten kilometers of eastern ukraine a region racked by civil conflict infighting within the hour the fate of m.h. seventeen had become clear so little he looks a little bit i heard the noise of the planes and thought the bombardment would start soon i also heard shooting somewhere from above we're used to the sound of

shooting here but then there was a loud clap i looked up and saw something falling over me it broke into pieces the main part fell here and exploded. of the plane were falling onto the roof of our house i came to help my brother puts out the fire the jet had disintegrated in the air they breathe from it forming a very wide area anti-government forces arrived and secured the crash site within the hour confirming that there were no survivors global reaction was immediate but we have to do everything in our capability to make sure an objective picture of what happened is made public and known to people in our country as well as the people of ukraine and the whole world. thoughts and prayers are with all the families of the passengers wherever they call out davis status and all and says to everyone connected with playbill on that flight this must be resolved by an international investigation to establish the facts of what has happened almost

immediately speculation began that the jet had been shot down period i said turly because you don't have the actual we don't have all the detail you want to be sure of what i say apparently. had been shot down shot down not an action blown out of the sky by seven pm local time both kiev and the anti-government sides had washed their hands of responsibility the government claimed that the not carry out any operations while a self defense spokesperson says that they simply did not have the weapons that could reach that high by ten pm ukrainian time finds in these claim to have found the black box the flight's data recorder promising to hundreds of it to international investigators more again as the. if you asian security expert richard blum told us that while experts are looking into the details of the crash at the end of a dead.