cnn's nick peyton walsh is in kharkiv, ukraine, where the journey began hours ago.n the phone from paris, the foreign editor of "the daily beast." i want to start with you, more planes with remains are set to arrive in the netherlands tomorrow. this is a tough week for the people of the netherlands. >> well, i think it is a very, very tough time for the people of the netherlands and also for people of australia, malaysia. people really all over the world who lost loved ones on that flight. of course the netherlands lost the most people, almost 200, out of the almost 300 people on that airplane were dutch. so everybody in the netherlands feels they know somebody or knows somebody who knew somebody on that plane and that is almost literally true. it's just a crushing blow for the country, but people are also, i think, growing increasingly angry. the dutch are very conservative, very commercially minded people, very reluctant to get on board with sanctions, regimes, that kind of thing, but a poll today or yesterday showed that 78% of the dutch now support sanctions aga

nick peyton walsh, cnn, donetsk. >>> matt through walsh is in the city. he joins us live. you're near the site. at what point will they be able to get there, do you think? >> reporter: that's a good question, max. that's not one that the inspectors are able to answer. they tried for through consecutive days. we heard in the report that you just broadcast that the fierce fighting around the crash site though not at the crash site itself. our vantage point is that that fighting is still continuing. the united states overnight has called on the russian government to use all of its influence to put pressure on the pro russian rebels to allow unfettered access to the international investigators who were divided between the city of donetsk and here. it's not just the rebels engaged in a military confrontation right now. the military forces are also trying to retake territory from the pro russian rebels. that's underway as well. and while that fighting takes place in the region around the general area of the crash site, it's very difficult, very dangerous certainly for the intern

nick peyton walsh is in kharkiv, ukraine, where the journey began a few hours ago. morning. >> carol, thank you. today is the second time in which military cargo planes, again today, a dutch c-13, have taken off from kharkiv with tragic cargo inside. yesterday, 40. they will be met today in the netherlands by hearse that will mark on a solemn procession towards the military base where forensic testing will begin. but still, here in ukraine, where there are many dutch experts, over 60, and australians, too, all working on this investigation, they're all hoping to get their job done as quickly as possible, hoping that perhaps the last flights can take off tomorrow, and that maybe then all the coffins will be in the netherlands and identification and forensic testing can occur. the real problem they face, though, is that they don't quite know what's on that. they've gone through the first three out of four refrigerated ones and are piecing through what's remaining there. a number of body bags yet specified and sometimes more than one body bag goes into a coffin. they a

nick peyton walsh, cnn, kharkiv. >> and in another development, the u.s. is now investigating in a separate incident whether the missiles shot two ukrainian fighter jets were shot down from russia. pro-russian rebels are claiming responsibility for bringing down those fighter jets and they say they used a shoulder fired missile system the ukrainian defense says it was possibly from inside russia. the pilots ejected after they were hit but the ukrainian military hasn't given any word on their conditions. >>> u.s. secretary of state john kerry reports some progress in talks toward an israel/hamas cease-fire. >> so far there is no clear way forward. kerry met wednesday with the israeli and palestinian authority leaders the key is getting hamas to agree with a cease-fire, a proposal it has already rejected once but a hamas spokesman signalled some movement in an interview wednesday with cnn. >> if there was direct contact to hamas and they are under the same conditions, i don't think that there will be any problem for hamas to say yes. >> u.s. aviation authori

joe doherty and nick peyton walsh. we've been hearing from u.s.icials that ukrainian military has absolutely fired these ballistic missiles at the pro russian be rebels in eastern ukraine. but to contradict that we've heard from the ukrainian foreign minister saying absolutely not. what are you hearing where you are? >> it's hard to pinpoint exactly what kind of weaponry is used. i should point out the real leader of the separate militants last night gave an impromptu six second at times bizarre press conference. one of the points he made actually the ukrainian army have been using a lot of heavy weaponry in the last 48 hours. that matches the time frame u.s. officials are talking about for the use of these pretty heavy weapons. i should say too we ourselves heard around about 2:00 in the morning some very loud long rumbling blasts on the outskirts of town. don't know what they were. it would make sense, frankly given the kind of opposition that the ukrainian army is facing here, the heavy weapon that u.s. officials say the separatists have been s

cnn correspondent anything peyton walsh is traveling with the convoy. >> reporter: days of planning and waiting. it's time to move. trucks cleared by separatists from a convey half journalists towards where flight mh-17 still lay in part. we stopped on the edge of a town but the separatists digging in on the roadside. blocked the media's path while the inspectors continued. soon we heard distant shelling and later heard the inspectors had to turn back. they're taking up positions along the road but people are fleeing. they say overnight two planes dropped bombs upon them. they're moving us back down the road. two planes dropped bombs and they are fleeing for their life. a steady flow of fear. planes flew from this direction he says. my little one, she's terrified. report back to see more smoke. they're saying there are ukrainian soldiers there but it's hard to distinguish them from separatists. on the back roads they fled and we soon heard too close. 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

i want to let you know we're getting word that an osce deputy andrew hug has told cnn's nick peyton walshe security situation at the crash site flight 17 right now is too dangerous, it is such that they cannot access the crash site today. so we've been talking about how australia and dutch, they are getting the police force and this multinational force to go into the site. apparently they are not even going to attempt it today because of severe security concern there is now. >> with all that's going on there, let's bring in kim thatle travelled to the site to get answers about their daughter. they don't believe she is dead. we're getting this report that it's too dangerous and the advice at least the plea from international leaders is stay away from this area, expecting more families try to do what this family has done. >> reporter: well, the hope is that no other families are going to try to do this because we have to remember that there is a conflict going on in donesque. the report from osce puts it in perspective. there are international police agencies trying to get in, the dutch pol

cnn's nick peyton walsh was with the monitors when they were turned back. >> reporter: i'm on the road that heads from donetsk city to the crash site where mh-17 came down over a week ago now. the osce convoy, perhaps you can hear that noise, but with dutch and malaysian police have been moving down the road, the roads cleared for them. they got to the outskirts and then they continued, the media told stop filming. at that point we moved back to where we are here. >> a potential bright spot this morning as i said. ukrainian military forces say they have advanced to the crash site, which might pave the way for investigators to actually be present there and start their investigation. cnn live in ukraine with more. >> reporter: there's been some significant it seems military advances or at least some military action taken by the ukrainian government. it actually comes after assurances there would be a cease-fire in the area around the crash site. that's not been the case. it's been heavy fighting reported over the course the last 36 hours. not immediate area of the crash site, but in the

. >> i want to bring in nick peyton walsh, he's in eastern ukraine. earlier those bodies left from the train station and the ukrainian government is trying to show respect there. there was a touching ceremony there as well. >> reporter: absolutely. within the limited resources that the ukrainian government have particularly at this stretched time of civil war. we've just seen slowly over the past 48 hours the dignity with which those bodies have been able to treated. just 24 hours ago, we saw them emerge out of rebel held areas and the violence of civil war to which they were unceremonilyioui held. we saw today slowly loaded on to the back of two aircraft. one we watched was a dutch c-1-30 and ukrainian soldiers in full dress uniform looked by australian diplomats, dutch representatives past these four coffins to the dutch military in the back of their c-1-30. a second plane leaving a few hours later. the words we heard on the car mack, a -- tarmac, respect by the ukrainians as much as they could. prime minister they are are really trying to reunite p

peyton walsh brings us up to speed. >> for inspectors trying to reach the crash site of the mh 17 this town is the major headache. separatists hold it, but barely. wi we saw him exhausted and unsure how close the ukrainian army was encircling them. this man a looter they say seen jumping through fences. they say he ran from shooting. led away perhaps to dig the trenches. for four days oleg and his cat simone have endured the blasts. i heard a jet approaching he said. i don't know what they used to shoot but it was heavy caliber. when you hear you just run to the basement he shouts and now they bomb the peaceful people, why in? to make us run away. this apartment hit by shelling. beneath it more militants rag tag unwilling to be filmed. one told us he was fight for his town. and then quickly the quiet broke. it's getting closer. we're now hearing what sounds like exchange of artillery beginning between two sides. it is 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, what awaited them

and let's go to nick peyton walsh, the investigators were turn away because of all the violence. nick, it hasn't been particularly clear who is responsible for the violence and we're hearing now from barbara starr that there are ballistic missiles being fired by the ukrainian government itself. >> reporter: look, it's clear investigators themselves aren't really sure who is behind the violence. it's hard to tell who is shelling who at times. we were at a town that's key on the road here from donetsk where the inspectors are basing themselves and the crash site. it was where they had to turn back yesterday. they didn't even get out of the hotel. it seems so far as far as today as far as we're aware real concerns about safety. we went to the town today. heavy shelling, we think it some of it coming from the towns from probably were ukrainian positions. both sides to blame in some capacity. a lot of heavy weaponry. john in the four months we've been covering this story, at the start, people were pointing gunses at each other, now it is heavy weapons. we stood here last night, 2:00,

nick peyton walsh will be live with us in just a moment. tell us more, barbara. >> good morning, carol. three u.s. officials confirmed to me a short time ago that u.s. intelligence over the last 48 hours has monitored the firing of short range missiles by territory controlled by ukrainian government forces into areas controlled by the pro russian separatists. this could be a significant escalation. short range ballistic missiles. they have war heads of up to 50 pounds. we are talking maximum lethality. we're talking about a weapon that can kill dozens of people at a time potentially when it hits. we don't have the exact launch or impact point. the u.s. is holding this information right now fairly lightly. -- tightly right now. these are the so-called good guys firing these. no reaction from kiev or moscow. the u.s. is not -- it's not clear if the u.s. is going to ask kiev not to fire these weapons again because they are saying the ukrainian government has a right to defend itself. but make no mistake this is a military escalation on this ba

nick peyton walsh will be live with us in just a moment.l us more, barbara. >> good morning, carol. three u.s. officials confirmed to me a short time ago that u.s. intelligence over the last 48 hours has monitored the firing of short range missiles by territory controlled by ukrainian government forces into areas controlled by the pro russian separatists. this could be a significant escalation. short range ballistic missiles. they have war heads of up to 50 pounds. we are talking maximum lethality. we're talking about a weapon that can kill dozens of people at a time potentially when it hits. we don't have the exact launch or impact point.

let's go to nick peyton walsh while he's in ukraine.ore. >> reporter: we don't know it's true if they have gotten through. but it seems the probability is to be likely. what we are hearing from the people's prime minister of the self-declared donetsk people's republic. it's a huge area and they have armored personnel carriers digging trenches. we know that the kranian military -- ukrainian military is around that crash site. they say operations are in progress. we ourselves heard a lot of heavy shelling around there but bear in mind this is heavily politicized, the separatists are going to say the reason you can't get to the crash site is because the ukrainian military has moved in there. we're going to see this back and forth. giving what we are seeing today, it is likely the ukrainians are edging closer and closer and closer and perhaps parts of it under the ukrainian government's control again. >> we'll check back. the next hour of cnn "newsroom" after a break. uh, hi... i'm here to drop off my resume. password? i'm sorry, i'm just..

cnn's nick peyton walsh joins us live. what's the latest? >> reporter: we know that at 3:10 local time, 8:00 your time, the train carrying 200 of the bodies of the victim of flight 17's departed from the donetsk. they took a different route than anticipated. it was expected to travel straight to kharkiv. there's been a lot of contrary information about when the train was supposed to leave, what direction it was taking. and it will probably take at least seven hours to make its way toward kharkiv where it will be met by an increasingly large number of australian, dutch, consular officials, those trying to go through the extraordinarily grim and difficult task of taking these bodies which are now a number of days since they died in that missile attack on that plane and putting them into what we understand will be some special coffins flown in by the dutch and then a number of plane have been arriving one by one at the kharkiv airport. it is unclear if they'll be identified through various technical means and experts here or they'll be shipped

our nick peyton walsh is tracking the latest. nick, what's the latest? of the two cargo plane that are leaving the per probably about two hours away from landing on the -- the difficulty of explaining this is so extraordinarily gruesome and painful for relatives to hearing, but they are trying to take body bags from this train, and put sometimes more than one body bag in a coffin and begin that journey home. they hope that eventually they will finish that process tomorrow unloading the train, four fridge traited wagons there, and only then does the full process begin of identifying exactly who was in the train sent from the crash site by separatist rebels. the concern now, though is further access to the site feasible in a properly controlled sealed-off fashion where international inspectors get there. could the police from london get proper access. the special representative to the prime minister is trying to little there this asp. as you mentioned there's a live war zone around there. a lot of concerns about the safety of anyone who might try to comb t