nick paton walsh has been there.kharkiv, ukraine, where the victims of flight 17 have been put on a plane bound for the netherlands. he's just seen the c-130 roll away after, i think, really a respectful transfer bit officials who are there. bring us up to speed, nick. >> reporter: christine, you join me as one of c-130s

our nick paton walsh is standing by. as we continue to look at these images at what is pieces of this malaysian airliner. let's just review for our viewers who are joining us what we know, and as importantly what we don't know yet at this point. >> the ukrainian president, petro poroshenko, said on a statement on his website that at about 4:20, this plane, a boeing 777, disappeared from radar screens. now, he went on to point out that that's the third plane to crash in that area in recent days. the previous two he said shot down from russian territory. ukrainian transport plane and a military jet as well. he couldn't exclude the possibility russian separatists potentially were involved but said the ukrainian military wasn't involved. malaysian airlines have said yes, they have lost contact with this airliner as well. so we don't have anybody openly saying this was certainly an act of russian separatists. the interior minister's adviser on his facebook page said that a rocket system was used and the plane was flying at 10

i want to bring in nick paton walsh live on the phone. nick, these investigators what is their plan for today? will they keep trying to get back to that crash site? >> caller: they will keep trying. there are intense preparations to arrange another visit. they made a move about an hour ago toward the site in coordination with the separatists and turned back. they have not made a move as of yet. that situation is complex. we know there are talks going out obtaining access to that area. this whole area is a scene of intensive -- mostly seen by ukraine but to the north they have been moving south very fast. we heard last night, artillery, loud explosions and small -- that suggests a fluid situation, at the least. we also understand, in the key town around the crash site, ukraines are moving in. they say they are moving in as much as they can. they may be taking some ground. things are moving fast here in a way we haven't seen during the last two or three months of the conflict. i think many people are wondering what that means for access. do

nick paton walsh has been there. he's joining us from kharkiv, ukraine, where the victims of flight 17 have been put on a plane bound for the netherlands. he's just seen the c-130 roll away after, i think, really a respectful transfer bit officials who are there. bring us up to speed, nick. >> reporter: christine, you join me as one of c-130s has just taken off. that was the one on to which we saw four bodies being loaded. we understand more than that number were in fact on that aircraft. but those four were given the dignified moments of silence here. and then the ukrainian military, slow march to that plane where they were handed over to officials of australian military. we have dutch and australian military on the tarmac here. dignitaries spoke, great sadness from the prime minister of australia here, focusing not on what happened but the resolve of the nations and the grief and anger. and ukraine very clear that the russians are directly responsible in the firing that brought down flight 17. let me explain what's

nick paton walsh, cnn, ukraine. >> matthew chance is in kharkiv, he joins us now live. there's word they're moving today. are they likely to get to the site? >> i think that very much depends on the security situation around the site. as we've been hearing from that report, there have been force clashes between the pro-russian rebels and ukrainian government forces. not on the crash site itself but in the various towns that surround the crash site of mh17. despite appeals to the ukrainian government to halt their offensive, where they appear to be trying to surround the rebels in that area and take control for themselves that crash site. they've refused to do so. so the fighting continues. which means that without an agreement from the ukrainians and the rebels, to stop their fighting, it seems to me very unlikely that the osce, the investigators from the netherlands and australia, are going to be able to achieve what they've failed to achieve over the past four days. they're still trying, because evof the urgency to gather the human remains and repattiate them to the v

. >> but nick paton walsh and his team did manage to reach the site.ere's what they found. >> the road isn't easy. eerie separatist checkpoints, but where it leads is harder still. in beauty surely nothing could spoil lies a horror still unresolved. 12 days since mh17 was blown out of the sky. it remains here, a monument to cruelty. to how 298 souls, some shipped in parts away on a separatist train, have yet to find complete rest. questions left. what or who else did they love? what did they feel in their last moments? the silence in these field system that of a tomb, like sorrow and loss have isolated it from the war around it. but you really have to stand here and see the things that people want to take with them on holiday and horrifyingly even now, smell the stench of decay to understand the urgency for relatives of those who died here, must feel to get inspectors to this site and get some kind of closure. in the hour we were there, no separatists, inspectors, or ukrainian soldiers at this site, just distant smoke that explains why the inspectors'

senior international correspondent nick paton walsh reports from ukraine. >> in many of their hearts,ere dreams of beaches, tranquil vacations. 298 lives taken here in a war they may have known little of. lying in the elements. after days of painful pleading with separatists, this train of five refrigerated wagons brought them closer to a resting place. but behind closed walls began the grim task of working out how many human souls were in the body bags on board. a journey that began so unceremoniously could only grow in dignity. a dutch c-130 taking 16 coffins, four loaded in silence. ukraine's embattled army honoring them as they could. global opinion at one, in sadness. >> we stand together today, united in grief with the families and friends who have lost people they cherish. >> as much dignity as can be afforded these bodies. >> 40 in total carried out today. the rest they hope by friday. only then can forensic science begin to work out who and how many there were. as they landed in eindhoven arld, the noise of recrimination was drowned out by a more powerful silence of respect,

>> nick paton walsh, we'll check back.s so much. >>> still to come in "the newsroom," congress prepares to go on a month-long break but not before passing a bill to sue president obama. what about immigration? is that issue a lost cause for this congress? i'll talk to an arizona lawmaker next. captain obvious: i probably wouldn't stay here tonight. man: thanks, captain obvious. captain obvious: i'd get a deal for tonight with deals for tonight from hotels.com. and you might want to get that pipe fixed. isn't easy, and it isn't the end. capella university is designed around your profession, giving you what you need to go further, to your point "c". capella university. start your journey at capella.edu. making sure you pay the right price for a new car just got a whole lot easier. introducing the kelley blue book price advisor. the powerful tool that shows you what should pay. it gives you a fair purchase price that's based on what others recently for the same car and kelley blue book's trusted pricing expertise. it all adds

. >> nick paton walsh joins us with more. what can you tell us this morning? >> reporter: an hour ago, some armed men accompanying turned up here. they have just been taken inside a building nearby the railway station where we believe the process of unloading the trains will slowly begin to happen. the train was said to have left from donetsk and moved up toward -- not the normal route you would take. i would think there are some separatist militants guarding that train. the relation they seem to have with ukrainians around them. we have seen inside the train some of the expert who is are accompanying the very tragic cargo that train contains. inside now. we have been told by a dutch official, it's closed military station. they will be there where the bodies are taken off. the airport told me coffins are being brought in slowly over the past two or three days, two days, i should say. it's trying to assist in getting the bodies back with dignity. the train actually arrived here. said to be moving the victims from the train where they sat for over a day now. put

nick paton walsh is there.fire just around the crash area, nick, that i guess is designed to allow international investigators to get to that site. >> reporter: yes. we are hearing today that the osce's monitoring, those who have been here for months observing the conflict, trying to negotiate a way through that. assisting access to crash sites. they are tweeting, they are trying to get to the crash sites. a spokesman saying that they are making good ground there, covering a lot of geography. i should point out, the journalists are talking about the violence in that area. not so easy a path. if they do get to the site, then of course, there's more potential for that large inspection mission to get there. despite the fact we were able to get there yesterday, we were a small car moving discreetly through fields. this is a convoy of ten to 20 vehicles of dutch and australian police who need to be there for hours to do their job. a very complex situation. yes, there is unilateral cease-fire here. that is the ukrain

let's go to nick paton walsh. le's talk about the victims, the victims finally getting to go home and get brought the dignity they deserve. their coffins, more coffins, i believe 74 today leaving for the netherlands. what can you tell us? >> reporter: extraordinary scenes yesterday both here and in the netherlands as the lengthy procession took the coffins to where they will be examined. that will repeat again today. taking off from here at the airport, we will see a dutch c-130 and australian c-17 cargo plane. 74 coffins on board that. >> we seem to have lost -- we seem to have lost nick paton walsh. we'll get back to him as soon as we can. he was talking about this incredible scene we saw play out. coffins brought home and victims properly laid to rest. 298 innocent lives were lost. we expect 74 more to return today. >> heavy hearts throughout the netherlands today. >>> the first 40 coffins arriving wednesday marked by solemn ceremonies and a steady flow of tears. the remains that have been collected will be exp

nick paton walsh managed to gete for the minor dignities they deze deser deserve. >> nick paton walshns me from donetsk. they set up land mines on the roads with access to the crash side. did you see that today, or did you take a different route? >> reporter: not the area we went to. the ukrainian government, this is happening in the areas around the crash site. it's a huge area and an area being fought over in a civil war. it wouldn't be entirely unlikely they would have some sort of firing position or mines to simply assist them in defending the areas they want to retain control of. do we specifically see land mines on the access roads? no. we saw small numbers of militants, welcoming us allowing us to go to the site. we have the dutch government saying they don't think they will get to the site in the days ahead. there simply isn't the safety they need. in the days past, we really seen the ukrainian government wanting to be as you were they are the ones that provide access, fighting for this area and the areas around that right now and potentially, inspectors working to get to the

nick paton walsh on the road.stance, but hopefully the investigators will get on that scene. >>> time for an "early start" on your money. european stocks are mixed. asian ended higher. here in the u.s., it's barely moving, but a little lower after the low on friday. a big week on wall street. investors weighing in on earning reports. the gdp is the broadest measure. friday, we get the july jobs reports. europe and the u.s. are expected to announce tougher sanctions against russia. it comes at a price for russia. will it move putin's hand at all? this shows trade relations between the u.s., eu and russia. further penalties hurt the economy considering how tightly linked europe is to russia in terms of energy and finance. when you look at this, the eu is russia's largest trading partner. russia is the third largest trading partner. they warned the coming sanctions will cost jobs. it is worth it. this is what we need to do in germany alone. 300,000 jobs depend directly on russian exports. >> 20 minutes to the hour. a

today cnn's nick paton walsh managed to get to the crash site. what he found there, next.ere i was again, explaining my moderate to severe chronic plaque psoriasis to another new stylist. it was a total embarrassment. and not the kind of attention i wanted. so i had a serious talk with my dermatologist about my treatment options. this time, she prescribed humira-adalimumab. humira helps to clear the surface of my skin by actually working inside my body. in clinical trials, most adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis saw 75% skin clearance. and the majority of people were clear or almost clear in just 4 months. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal events, such as infections, lymphoma, or other types of cancer have happened. blood, liver and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure have occurred. before starting humira, your doctor should test you for tb. ask your doctor if you live in or have been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. tell

nick paton walsh joins us now live. what happened? >> well, we were with the monitors, stopped from going with them into the town, a key town, because it is about 7 kilometers away from the crash site on the road from donetsk where i'm standing here. we were stopped at the checkpoint by separatist militants. the inspectors went on. they tell us they went about another kilometer or so, and then were told by the separatists it was time to turn back. i spoke to the head of the osce part of the mission, he said the ground was shaking beneath us because of the strength of the artillery being used. so palpable anger and frustration among them. they have been trying this now for two straight days in a row. it is interesting to note that while they're making that move, the ukrainian government announced one of the towns, in progress of an operation to reclaim was the town itself. we ourselves, we pulled back away from where they stopped us, tried a different route towards it and heavy shelling came in very close to us there. there is a very v

nick paton walsh is there.eing. >> reporter: well, behind me, the engines just sparked up on the dutch c-130. we think it may have some of the 74 coffins being taken out on board. the australian foreign minister says she's just driven up in her convoy to the plane and is now moved over around here. see the orange plane? that's timerman's aircraft. we are not expecting them to speak. we are seeing a clear presence of dignitaries from two countries, at this moment, sending police, potentially the australians on to this area to try to get to the crash site. maybe 200 of them. key developments showing how little satisfaction there is amongst the australians and dutch about the kind of access they had to the crash site at this stage. again, we have to address the numbers of coffins so far. after the planes take off, the australian c-17. expected to be a small shipment going out tomorrow on yet another plane. that doesn't explain the number of people whose remains were able to move on the refrigerated train that left

nick paton walsh joins us again from london. i understand you have information about separatists on the ground. >> well, we're hearing from the pro-kiev government, a billionaire appointed by kiev, he's released a statement in which he says at this moment separatists are preventing any ukrainian investigators from getting to that particular site. he says that will severely hamper their ability to perform any kind of investigation. he also hints later on in the statement the possibility that that may, in fact, be being done deliberately to hide the remains and hinder any investigation going forward. he offers condolences to the family and asks them to permit an investigation here. you see clearly they are -- this came down in territory held by separatists where the ukrainian military does not have a strong presence. and it seems now, of course, that the ukrainian government itself may have an extraordinarily hard time getting anybody to that place to begin an investigation, all of which will slant what we hear in the days ahead,

the personal possessions and i'm sorry to say human remains to get some kind of closure. >> nick paton walshthanks. >>> it's a grim anniversary today. it was exactly 33 years ago that the young son of cnn's john walsh was abducted and later found murdered. walsh tells us how this tragedy has changed the course of his life, next. listen up... i'm reworking the menu. veggies you're cool... mayo, corn dogs...you are so out of here! ahh... the complete balanced nutrition of great tasting ensure. 24 vitamins and minerals. 9 grams of protein... with 30% less sugars than before. ensure, your #1 dr. recommended brand now introduces ensure active. muscle health. clear protein drink and high protein. targeted nutrition to feed your active life. ensure. take life in. the last four hours have seen... one child fail to get to the air sickness bag in time. another left his shoes on the plane... his shoes! and a third simply doesn't want to be here. ♪ until now... until right booking now. ♪ planet earth's number one accomodation site booking.com booking.yeah! no question about that. but your erectile dysfu

senior correspondent nick paton walsh reports. >> for dutch and australian police time to move. roads cleared by separatists for a convoy half journalists toward where flight mh-17 still lay in part. we stopped on the edge of the town, the separatists digging in on the roadside. blocks the media's path while the inspector's kins. soon we heard distance shelling and later learned the inspectors had to turn back. people fleeing overnight say two planes dropped bombs bonn them. they're moving us down the road. two planes dropped bombs and they're fleeing out of fear for their lives. a difficult place for the convoy to carry through. a steady flow of fear the planes 234ru from this direction, my little one is terrified. we pulled back to see more smoke this car load saying ukrainian soldiers there. on the backroads they also fled and we soon heard too close why. rockets landing nearby. quiet farm lives here, torn apart by this violence before it brought down mh-17. now, it keeps both these people and the relatives of the planes dead in limbo. they won't get answers or closure that t

>> nick paton walsh reporting live for us this morning. i want to dying deeper in bring in brigadier kevin ryan. he's a former defense attache to russia. welcome, sir. >> thank you. >> is it surprising -- is it as surprising to you as it is to me that two more planes were shot down near this crash site? >> well, i think it demonstrates that the separatists are working to some degree independently from any control out of the kremlin or moscow. i think that the aircraft that were shot down today have been reported as su-25s. those are close air support aircraft which means that they were probably on the ukrainian side, they were probably involved in supporting some ukrainian ground offensive in the area. so you could see it more as a combatant engagement, but certainly it's different than the shoot down of the mh-17, but in any case, i think it proves that the kremlin continues to support and the separatists continue to try and establish an independent area in eastern ukraine. >> doesn't this just bolster u.s. claims that russian-backed rebe

nick paton walsh for us.. >>> and let me show you a photograph of one of the families lost when malaysian air 17 crashed in ukraine. this is kim halle, and her daughter megan. dad behind the lens snapping the picture, the final photo taken of the family before the plane took off. erin mclaughlin reports, the photo here is a final reminder of joy for their grieving relatives back home in the netherlands. >> it's a whole family. too much to understand. >> reporter: dave and kim halle were on their dream holiday, with their 4-year-old daughter, megan. dave took what would be his very last photo. his wife and child ready for takeoff on board mh-17. >> we're looking at them and thinking, yeah, it was a happy moment for them. >> at least their last moments were happy. >> yeah, they really were. yeah. >> reporter: kim's parents say all they can do is wait for their bodies. they watched as the first unidentified caskets arrived in holland. and while ty didn't know for sure, they told themselves the halls came off the

cnn's nick paton walsh is on the scene. >> reporter: the road isn't easing.g, eerie separatist check points, but where it leads is harder still. surely nothing could spoil lies a horror still unresolved. it's been 13 days since mh17 was blown out of the sky and remains here a monument to cruelty. to how 298 souls, some shipped in parts, away on a separatist train to yet to find complete rest. questions left. what or who else did they love? what did they feel in their last moments? the silence in these fields is that of a tomb like soil and loss of isolated it from the war around it, but you really have to stand here and see the things that people wanted to take them with them on holiday and horrifyingly even now smell the stench of decay to understand the urgency for relatives of those who died it must feel to get inspectors to this site and kind some kind of closure. in the hour we were there, no separatists, inspectors or ukrainian soldiers at the site. just distant smoke that explains why the inspectors' large convoy has had such trouble getting here. god

so to nick paton walsh we go, live in donetsk, ukraine.ational investigators can't get through. you and your crew managed to get to this crash site, sharing these new images with us. first let me ask you, did you see evidence with your own eyes of these land mines? >> reporter: no, not really. and if you actually examine the ukrainian security council statement, they're suggesting more separatists are putting up firing positions and mining areas around the crash site. they're trying to suggest they're blocking access for inspectors but if you look at the reality, this whole area, and it's a vast area where the wreckage is scattered, this whole area is being in a brutal civil war. at the crash site, there were plenty of black plumes of smoke on the horizon. intense shelling of one town, blocking access for inspectors from donetsk, where i'm standing to that crash site. so i think it's hard on the ground to actually see specific evidence of mines being put in to block access. and the separatist militants checked our documents and asked quest

let's bring in nick paton walsh. you spent a lot of time in ukraine and a lot of time at the crash site. let's talk about the victims. we know more of them will be returned to the netherlands this morning. 74 coffins. do we know, at this point, if we are anywhere close to bringing all the victims home? >> reporter: well, about 26 minutes from now, we will see the second set of planes take off from here to the netherlands. a dutch c-130 followed by an australia c-17. they will have 74 coffins on board. i spoke to a representative of the dutch here. they hope tomorrow, the last load will go. they may need one more flight, potentially. it's hoped work can finish up tomorrow. that will probably involve another 74 coffins. that's 188 coffins, perhaps. could be slightly higher or lower. the number of coffins, sadly, doesn't represent the number of bodies specifically on the train because there are body parts and body bags and some body bags go into coffins. more than one are inside each coffin. it's an extraordinarily grue

nick paton walsh joins us by phone. the international monitors have said in the last 24 hours they have struck some sort of agreement with both sides. they are hoping for access with the territory because they didn't get it yesterday because of the fighting. what are the dutch and australian investigators on the ground expected to be able to accomplish today? >> reporter: we have traveled with them on the road to the crash site. accompanying the envoy. at this point, we are moving away from the check point. we saw the convoy continuing on what should be the road. [ inaudible ] that check point -- saying there had been shelling. one said two flames hit the area recently. as we stood there, the time being, but we heard slowly shelling in the distance, the far distance, of course. things like this must be playing on the minds. [ inaudible ] within that convoy. quickly as possible. at times they are trying to make sure it happens. we know from the ukrainian government, they are moving to reclaim the crash site. poppy? >> ab

our senior international correspondent nick paton walsh is in kharkiv, ukraine where the grim journey is about to continue. nick, how many bodies were on the train and the timeline when they're finally going to be identified to give families really the closure they've been waiting for? >> jim, let's deal first of all with the numbers. we don't know the definitively how many bodies that were on the train that arrived at the railway station. the bodies in the words of one official being repackaged so they can be transported back to amsterdam. the rebels have suggested about 282 intact bodies were on that train. and 87 body parts. those are figures echoed by a malaysian security official on the train himself who spoke to me earlier. here's where the confusion begins. dutch officials say they have a reliable source saying only about 200 were put on that train. they so far think that's the number they may eventually find. they haven't been through all five rev rated carriages, only managed to unpack the first and moving onto the second. but there's a potential discrepancy there. the real d

nick paton walsh, to you, just talking about the tangibles that president obama is talking about, thesians arming and training and supporting the rebels in eastern ukraine and now we've seen the ukrainian military working its way in eastern ukraine and the fighting back and forth. >> absolutely. there's a project clearly under way here that the russians have perhaps instigated, funded and then maybe lost heart in, lost faith in, spiraled out of control. many i think see the consistent presence of separatist militants and their ability to fight on is something perhaps that is russia is entirely behind this, that russia is happy to see it carry on because it now weakens the now comparatively anti-russian government in kiev. yes, we're seeing increased fighting here. barack obama very clear and i think he's right that the ukrainian military is is better equipped to deal with the separatist issue provided it's not properly backed up by the russian army. this is a really big deal. till now, all the sanctions have been tweaks against individuals, stopping his chief going on holiday to europ

. >> nick paton walsh is traveling with the convoy and filed this report. >> days of planning, talking for dutch and australian police, time to move. toward where flight mh 17 still lay in part. we stopped on the edge of the town where the separatists digging in on the roadside blocks the media's path while the inspectors continued. we heard distance shelling and later learned the inspectors had to turn back. they're taking up positions along this road, but people fleeing say that overnight two planes dropped bombs upon them. they're moving us back down the road. two planes dropped bombs and they are fleeing frankly fout o fear for their lives. the planes flew from this direction, my little one is terrified. we pull back to see more smoke. this car load saying the ukrainian soldiers there, it's hard to distinguish them from separatists. on the backroads they also fled and we soon heard too close why. rockets landing nearby. quiet farm lives here torn apart by this violence before it brought down mh-17. now it keeps both these people and the relatives of the planes dead in limbo. they w

nick paton walsh, cnn, ukraine. >> unbelievable. thank you, nick.ned now by lieutenant colonel rick francona, former u.s. military attache in military. and david soucie, cnn safety analyst and author of "why planes crash." the situation for mh17 seems to have gone from bad to worse. what do we know about this missile now that took this plane down? >> well, we were able to look at some detailed pictures. we're finally able to get the pictures located there is an article in "the wall street journal" that did a little bit of documenting as well. so between those two things, i've been in communication with people at the wreck site and trying to do their investigation. so we've been providing them with some satellite images and analysis, allowing them to get a good view of what it is that the remains might still be. >> so what does the wreckage tell us about the missile and how it worked? >> well, what the wreckage is telling us is that the missile actually -- you could see that it had exploded prior to impact. and maybe you can talk about that. >> prior

>> nick paton walsh for us. thank you very much. keep yourself safe there we will be right back to discuss lots more of this coming up very soon. >> absolutely. >>> and what happened in israel, specifically with the shelling of a u.s. school, that, israel answering for, but not taking full blame, saying hamas shares in it. ever since we launched snapshot, my life has been positively cray-cray. what's snapshot, you ask? only a revolutionary tool that can save you big-time. just plug it in, and the better you drive, the more cash you'll stash. switching to progressive can already save ye $500. snapshot could save ye even more. meat maiden! bringeth to me thine spiciest wings of buffalo. moderate to severe is tough, but i've managed. i got to be pretty good at managing my symptoms, except that managing my symptoms was all i was doing. when i finally told my doctor, he said my crohn's was not under control. he said humira is for adults like me who have tried other medications but still experience the symptoms of moderate to severe crohn

anderson. >> nick paton walsh.ally, one step closer, finally out of territory controlled by pro-russian rebels. coming up, we'll talk with a medical examiner about how investigators will identify those remains. that's in about 15 minutes from now. a lot ahead. joining me now with month more on the knowns and the unknowns and the various claims, cnn military analyst, lieutenant colonel rick francano along with former air investigator david soucie. david, you brought a black box. obviously, it's not black. what, is this basically the same -- >> it's a different model, different manufacturer, but it does do the same thing. collects as many as 10,000 data points off of the aircraft. from that, where it would be important now anderson, is trying to figure out exactly what direction that missile came from, in case someone would try to say, it wasn't a missile at all, it must have been a bomb, it must have been something going on other than that. so this is a critical part of the proof of the aircraft, in that it will tel

let's bring in senior international correspondent nick paton walsh. what did he tell you? >> they say they've been to the site. they have now left the site had. they say they have left militants to take control of the area and remove journalists from it saying it was totally open for anyone to walk around. they say there are now consultations, negotiations he said happening between the separatists and what they refer to as the consultation contact group. that's a number of pro-ukrainian officials, dignitaries involved in the discussions about the conflict generally understand that mechanism is being used to begin talks. so the separatists about potentially securing a corridor may be having a cease-fire of some description to permit access to the crash site. i should say the man i spoke to clearly himself quite shaken up by what he had seen. bodies on the road, bodies on the field. said they were beginning the task of drying to collect some of the bodies that would be brought to some of the morgs in the main city when that task begins. he says right now it's pitch black. li

nick paton walsh we appreciate it. stay safe.m of osce investigators had to turn back before reaching the crash site. it's now been 12 days since the plane was shot down. michael bociurkiw, a spokesman for the osce joins me today. michael, this is the third day in a row where you haven't been able to get out to the site. what happened today? >> what happened today, anderson, is there were a lot of talks going on in kiev and here and donetsk. and we, the osce mission took the mission to do a reconnaissance trip. it was only two vehicles today. of course, we were all heavily kited up. and we made it as far as we made the other day, two-thirds to the crash site. once we got there, it was clear that the bombing, the shelling was extremely heavy. in fact, at one point we had to take cover next to our vehicles because it was so bad. but what this indicates, once again, is that one or both sides are not honoring their commitment sllg. seriously. today was meant to be a day of tranquility, where the osce, the special monitoring commissio

let's go back with -- to nick paton walsh in london. as we were talking about, the idea of separatists investigating this crash site obviously to the families of all those on board -- to the families, 295 people on board this plane, probably from all around the world, that is absolutely not going to be acceptable that some sort of international body with experience investigating a crash would not be able to get access to this site. >> i think the issue for the separatists, if they wish to have any sense of responsibility in this international community calling for help would be to allow international investigators. but we're talking about a phenomenonly dangerous place. that area might be rocketed in hours ahead. in context, this civil war, although out of the spotlight because of the middle east recently, has been raging absolutely violently in the past few weeks. and the separatists are very much, i think it's fair to say, on the run. they have been moved out of their strong holds, pushed back, fracturing some say in leadership, still

. >> let's bring in nick paton walsh joining us on the phone from khakrkv.of the victims have been handed over to dutch officials. ways happening now and what happens next? >> well, i'm standing outside the factory where many of these bodies -- well, all the bodies as far as we're aware, have been brought by train this morning. now the dutch officials in there, together with u.n., are overseeing all the various international groups who have come here to assist in this operation. beginning with the delicate task of taking the bodies from the refrigerated train and being put into the coffins which will be floeb back to the netherlands. that's not going to start happening until some point tomorrow. i spoke to a malaysian security official here. he suggested it may happen a little earlier. and he also went on to say he traveled on the train with the bodies from the crash site through here to kharkiv and 282 of them have been presented by the separatists in what he referred to as in good condition. as they were actually mostly intact. he mentioned there were 87 b

first, nick paton walsh joins us.> reporter: we were within, i think, 10 to 15 miles of the large sprawling crash site but a very similar picture. the town you saw pictures from, lines between donetsk, the main city of a million, today where a residential apartment block was hit and the crash site itself. it's really the reason they keep having to turn back, it's been hit for the last three days in a row. we were there yesterday when they got close and had to turn around. as you saw there, we actually saw that shelling hit the town itself today. it seems to be still on the control of militants, but they are shaky, tired and cut off and don't know where the ukrainian soldiers are but do feel it in circle. that's the reason its so hard to get to the site because front lines constantly change. >> short range missiles within the first 48 hours, have ukrainian officials responded? >> they said yes, we do not use such weaponry. i have to say hearing the booms that happen this time of night so regular on the outskirts of don

nick paton walsh is there now.estigators are going through the train that transported the victim's bodies. there is a big discrepancy on the victims supposed to be on that train. what did you learn? >> reporter: well, earlier it had been thought there were 282 bodies on board. that figure confirmed but e crane y -- ukrainian ukrainians. he thought there were 282 bodies reasonably good condition and 87 body parts but dutch investigator haves been later on today maintaining quite consistently while they are only going through the refrigerated wagon slowly, they opened the second of five just earlier on today. they maintain from a separate source who saw the bodies being put onto the train that there may only be 200. they say there could be more than 200 but the wide area in which the wreckage and human remains were scattered when the missile hit that plane, that it may be necessary to return to the crash site and even then extraordinary hard to find those missing parts, anderson? >> what happens now? i know the foren

but nick paton walsh and his crew made it there safely.and mines while you were there, nick? >> reporter: no, wolf, no evidence of what they are saying to keep inspectors away. they did eventually wave us through. we got to a site that was eerily abandoned. the road isn't easy, check points, but where it leads is harder still. nothing surely could spoil lies a horror still unresolved. 12 days since mh-17 was blown out of the sky. it remains here, a monument to cruelly. 298 souls some shipped in parts away on a separatist train have yet to find complete rest. questions left, what or who else did they loved, what did they feel in their last moments. >> the silence is that of a tomb like sorrow and loss of isolated from the war around it, but you really have to stand here and see the things that people want to take with them on holiday and horrifyingly even now smell the stench of decay to understand the urgency from relatives of those who died here must feel to get inspectors to the site and get some kind of closure. in the hour we were ther

according to nick paton walsh, authority expect 74 coffins to depart tomorrow. aviation correspondent richard quest. michelle, let me start with you. you know people on board and as a citizen of the netherlands, what was it like for you? >> i've never seen my people as much in shock as today. i think this is when the airplane was shot down, it was the day since the second world war, not as many people died in one day because of an act of war as last thursday. and for me, today, my neighbor died, the famous hiv researcher and he was an acquaintance of mine and even though they weren't in the coffins, i was very close to them and sitting at the office of my newspaper this afternoon and watched it on television when the two airplanes arrived at the airport and i really was very moved and i've seen people in tears, many of my colleagues, as you know, journalist are often very noise see people, they were all so quiet. they were all probably in tears or very emotional. >> richard quest and i had a privilege of anchoring our coverage for about two hours this afternoon

senior international correspondent nick paton walsh is in ukraine and he's joining us by phone.ble to get to the site. do i understand they still can't get there? >> i understand that the dutch have sent armed military there. bodies still need to be recovered at this point. >> reporter: frankly it would be unwise as we're significantly outmanned here. i'm standing here in a cafe. the question really is about negotiating. the fighting is between the separatists who seem to control that particular site and the ukrainian military who in the clomer tos around far and away have been there for the last couple of days. we're talking about a road between the hotel where i'm staying at and the crash site has prevented the police commission from advancing onto the site on two separate occasions. they're going to attempt access again tomorrow but are both of the sides fighting in this war willing to lay down their wars and stay down long enough to let the police have access to the site. that's what the relatives of the victims of flight 17 want. they need the wreckage recovered, personal p

nick paton walsh has more. >> reporter: trying to reach the crash site in this town, a major headacheseparatists hold it, but barely. we saw them exhausted, edgy, unsure how close the ukrainian army was encircling them. this man, a looter seen jumping through fences, he ran from shooting. for four days, olig and his cat simone have endured the blasts. i don't know what the separatists used to shoot, but it was heavy caliber. she shouts and now they bomb the peaceful people, why? to make us run away. this apartment block hit by shelling. beneath it, more militants, unwilling to be filmed. one told me he was fighting for his town. and then quickly the quiet broke. >> it's getting closer, we're now hearing what sounds like an exchange of artillery beginning between two sides. it's time to move back away from here. >> we left along with many other locals, some on foot, all now fleeing down a road the inspectors want to travel up. this is what awaited them when they tried to get to the site unsuccessfully later that day. another complication in the city center of donetsk, the war suddenly

cnn could not independently confirm that statement, but our nick paton walsh did make it to and fromsafely. he's joining us from donetsk, eastern ukraine. so nick, what happened, the monitors from the osce, they have basically been not able to go to the crash site and see what's going on. tell us the latest. >> reporter: that's the case for the last four days. they have tried the first two days, the inspectors joined with the osce monitors, trying to negotiate their access. first they go together, turn back, hearing shelling and the osce monitors themselves on a different route. we went to the north, saw en route heavy shelling, clear, back smoke in many different positions in the horizon around that crash site. it's a complex route. so for a convoy of 10 to 30, some armored vehicles, so much international attention moving between such a volatile area, like the international inspectors, it's much tougher than us, one small car moving through the countryside there. when we got there, though, no signs of separatists or inspectors or the ukrainian militant, at all to that particular are

today nick paton-walsh made the trip. how different was it to get there, and what did you see?ely easy for us. how it would been for the osc and inspection inspection to get to the site. we're one car, they're 10 to 20. when we were there, we didn't see much in the way of land mines. of course, this is a war zone, so there will be a lot of munitions in that particular area, but the feeling you get when you're there is separatists who were comparatively welcoming to us to get through aren't in particular a big number. they're nowhere to be seen at the crash site itself. i think the feeling people get when they hear the ukrainian government talk that way is they half are trying to suggest that retaking the area is the solution to gain access. we heard from the dutch that they don't believe they're going to get near it in the days ahead. certainly the violence swirling around that eerily quiet area continued all day. we saw nothing but black smoke around us. the site, thoughs extraordinarily somber, still wreckage there, of course, people's possessions lying among the sunflowers,

nick paton walsh, cnn, ukraine. >>> a new cold war. those are the words of a leading russian lawmaker striking out at the u.s. on twitter. it follows criticism from russia's foreign ministry, which says the latest round of american sanctions will cause nothing but harm, not to russia, but to their relationship. new sanctions have recently been announced by both washington and the european union. they're designed to bite more. they include restrictions on russian state on banks, oil-relate the equipment and technology is also being targeted. we're talking about the equipment here that you use to modernize exploration for oil. new contracts for arms exports and imports will be hit, as will eight of putin's top associates. the names of whom have just been revealed in the past hour. these tactics are, of course, designed to pressure the kremlin. and vladimir putin into ordering a u-turn on ukraine. but will they work and will there be a wider economic impact? let's speak to one of the world's top economists, joseph sticking lots, and from

according to nick paton walsh, authorities expect 74 coffins to depart tomorrow.rom the dutch paper and aviation correspondent richard quest. michelle, let me start with you. you knew people on board flight mh-17 and as a citizen of the netherlands, what was it like to be there on this first national day of mourning in some 50 years? >> i've never seen my people as much in shock as today. i think this is -- when the airplane was shot down, it was a day since the second world war that as many people died in one day because of an act of war as last thursday, and for me today, my neighbor died, he was the famous hiv researcher and senator for parliament, an acquaintance of mine and i had a feeling i was very close to them and sitting at the office of my newspaper this afternoon and watched it on television when the airplanes arrived at the airport and i really was very moved and i've seen people in tears. many of my colleges are very often very noisy people. they were all so quiet, they were all probably in tears or very emotional. >> michelle, richard quest and i ha

our nick paton walsh was there in the last 24 hours.ave to say that's a shocking claim if true. 80 bodies. does that seem plausible to you? >> reporter: very plausible. there's never been any clarity at all on what that train contained. there was a hugely complex and distressing for the relatives, numbers game trying to work it out. we later learn that 227 coffins were shipped back to the netherlands but within that were many body bags perhaps representing more in that number or less, not really clear. but this is an enormous crash site area. the damage done to a plane hit by a missile is extraordinary as we saw on the ground and certainly given that damage and the extent and disruption caused on the grounds, too, the wreckage, it is entirely plausible there's a great deal. i'm sure some relatives hoped the number would be smaller than larger. the slow work of the forensic scientists and netherlands has gone under way and they're beginning to get more concrete data. john. >> it's been two weeks, nick. that is just appalling if true that

bring now back retired major general spider marks along with cnn international correspondent nick paton walshas reported extensively on the rebels. you've seen the types of military equipment that the groups have, and you just heard tom reporting on all the details of what this buk missile would be able to do, how difficult to operate. could the people that you've met with there, these groups, have pulled something like this off? >> hard to really say. i think it's clear something of that technology like the buk, you would have to have well trained people to operate it. the people we've met, the militia, they're rag tag, a lot have old military experience and that's ground street-to-street fighting rather than technology canal stuff to run something like that. the weapons they've had, things have changed enormously. a lot of heavy weapons have flooded in. but the video you've seen of lighter artillery even ground rocket launchers are nothing of the scale of the buk. videos show one that separatists claim they've got hold of in the past week. we can't clarify that. that's social media. this wa

and nick paton walsh live with the very latest on that. you were there in kharkiv when the train carrying those bodies and the black boxes arrived, nick. describe to what you call the ghostly silent arrival of this train. >> it was a sight that many people around the world have been waiting to see. for days, really. finally this train, having left separatist held territories moving into the areas controlled by the ukrainian government, came to a railway station here in kharkiv next to a closed wall compound to which it was quickly taken. ukrainian police, even a couple of military separatists. inside that compound, the complex work getting down. they're having to take the bodies off the train slowly. this team of international experts. the majority of them here dutch. and they have, to as they say, delicately repackage them, put them in coffins. the first 50 now out of the five refrigerated wagons there. the first one and the second one having been opened so far. the first 50 bodies will be leaving tomorrow at 11:00 in the morning after a

our nick paton walsh is at kharkiv airport. are fanned out across the region for more. >>> we're talking about the human tragedy, the human dimension of all of this. it's a day of mourning in the netherlands for the victims of mh17. one of them lost his life while working to rid the world of aids. find out more about a leading researcher who died. so needlessly on mh17 and his work as well coming up next. >>> big typhoon has made its way across taiwan, headed toward china right now. we have more. >> hi. this storm system making landfall right now with pretty powerful winds. it's kept similar strength we saw at landfall some 24-plus hours ago across taiwan. wind speeds have barely weakened down to 30 kph, category 1 type hurricane if placed in the at laventic ocean. taiwan has seen a lot of rainfall and now fujian province in china. flooding a major issue in this region because of rains over the last several weeks. back out towards taiwan, the ships brought back from ports. schools, business is closed. taiwan stock exchange susp

cnn's nick paton walsh was part of the press contingent traveling with them before it was stopped.nd the smoke rising from that area, that team did not make it to where it was going. >> they did not, john. i'm standing outside the hotel where some of them are based, their vehicles visible in the background behind me. palpable frustration and anger among some of tinspection mission. have been talking to the head of the osce saying they're going to try again tomorrow, they got assurances from both sides they'll be able to pass through. they were still in rebel health territo held territory, a kilometer into it. and the separatists said, look, it is too dangerous here. the ground shook from the volume of heavy artillery around them. they had to turn back. they're here. more talks going on. i hope they will be able to have another go tomorrow, but bear in mind now the safety looks increasingly precarious for this mission. we ourselves heard very heavy rocket fire, some landing very close to us. we had to get out of there very quickly. the fear being this is continually dragging out the