Tag: Ukraine

Dutch families of MH17 victims demand international inquiry

The families of the victims of Flight MH17, frustrated with what they see as the failure of Dutch authorities to investigate the disaster, are demanding that the UN take over the investigation and launch an international inquiry into the tragedy.

The relatives of those died in the July, 2014 Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 crash in eastern Ukraine are frustrated with what they see as a Dutch mishandling of the investigation into the tragedy.

They are now demanding that the UN take over and launch an international inquiry into the disaster.

Reuters obtained a copy of a letter written by Van der Goen Attorneys on behalf of 20 relatives from Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and the US, which was sent Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Friday, accusing Dutch officials of having failed to build a case.

The letter demanded that inquiries by the Safety Board and prosecution service be handed over to the UN, and that Rutte ask the UN to appoint a special envoy to take over.

It said the Netherlands “has completely botched” the fact-finding investigation and the legal framework of the case.

Dutch prosecutors have been unable to access the crash site, which is located on the front lines of a war zone in eastern Ukraine which is disputed by Ukrainian troops and Russian-backed rebels, and haven’t met international requirements to secure evidence, the letter said.

“Nobody knows who is doing what,” Reuters quotes said Bob van der Goen, a spokesman for the law firm, as saying. “There is no coordination, there is no leadership whatsoever [by] Holland.”

According to the letter, an international inquiry is the only way to identify who shot down the plane and ensure that those responsible are brought to court.

Rutte said on Friday that the Dutch teams were returning to the Netherlands.

“We have done everything we could. In view of the safety situation and the weather, we cannot do anything more right now,” Reuters quotes him as saying.

Eight families from Australia, whose relatives died in the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 crash in eastern Ukraine are also preparing to sue Ukraine, Malaysia, Russia, and the airline, The Daily Mail reported Thursday.

German mom to sue Kiev over MH17

The mother of a victim killed in the Malaysian plane crash in eastern Ukraine has started legal proceedings to sue the Ukrainian authorities in the European Court of Human Rights, demanding about $1 million for pain and suffering.

The mother of “Olga L.”, a German citizen, submitted her case against Ukraine to the European Court of Human Rights last week. She is demanding €800,000 (roughly $1 million) for negligent homicide, reports the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag.

The woman insists that Ukrainian authorities should have shut the country’s airspace to civilian flights due to the heavy fighting between Kiev troops and militias in the country’s east.

She argues the Kiev government failed to do this because they didn’t want to lose out on overflight fees. According to Bild, around the time of the disaster about 700 flights were crossing Ukrainian territory daily, accruing several millions of euros in revenue a month.

The victim’s mother is being represented in court by Elmar Giemulla, a professor of aviation law. Giemulla is also acting for other German families of MH17 victims, who announced in September that they are also planning to sue Kiev in court.

“Each state is responsible for the security of its air space,” Giemulla said in September. “If it is not able to do so temporarily, it must close its air space. As that did not happen, Ukraine is liable for the damage.”

Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was apparently shot down on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur over eastern Ukraine on July 17. Four German citizens were among the 298 victims of the plane crash.

A preliminary report into the disaster delivered by Dutch investigators on September 9 said that the MH17 crash was a result of structural damage caused by a large number of high-energy objects striking the Boeing from the outside.

However, in November the Dutch government refused to reveal details of a secret pact between members of the Joint Investigation Team (the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia and Ukraine) examining the downed Flight MH17. If the participants, including Ukraine, do not want information to be released, it will be kept secret.

Western countries have repeatedly tried to blame Russia without any evidence to back up their claims.

Russia has meanwhile expressed surprise with the lack of new evidence presented in the report. Moscow suggested the UN should appoint a special representative to monitor the investigation into the shooting-down of flight MH17.

Moscow made radar surveillance data of the incident public which show the involvement of Kiev in downing the Malaysian plane.

Czech officials receive poison letters

Security tightened at Czech govt offices as 2 ministries get poisoned letters. The Czech president is an outspoken critic of US meddling in Ukraine.

The Czech Interior Ministry is tightening security at government offices after envelopes with deadly doses of poison were sent to two ministries in recent days, Reuters said.

The two letters sent by mail from Sweden and Slovenia were intercepted before reaching the addressees of Finance Minister Andrej Babis and Interior Minister Milan Chovanec.

Two more envelopes, with harmless substances, arrived to the office of President Milos Zeman and a commercial television station. “We do not want to raise panic but… we need to adopt these security measures,” according to Chovanec.

Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry on Friday received another suspicious package and sent it for analysis.

Hard-core Nazis in power in Kiev

“Their children will hole up in basements!” screeched Ukrainian “President” Poroshenko, the oligarch and “Chocolate King.” “This is how we will win this war!”

He was talking about the children of the people of East Ukraine, whose cities are being bombed from the air by the US-supported Ukrainian military.

Thousands have been killed, mostly civilians: Ukraine’s war on its own people has displaced nearly a million people. Many have fled to neighboring Russia, while a little under half a million are classified as internally displaced refugees.

The Ukrainian military, which claims to be fighting “terrorists,” is using cluster bombs – weapons that are banned in the civilized world, but freely used by Ukraine’s military, which includes the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion.

Formally inducted into Ukraine’s US-backed military machine, the Azov Battalion was organized by openly neo-Nazi groups, and has been such a success that their deputy commander, Vadim Troyan, has been appointed the city of Kiev’s chief of police.

Troyan is a member of the “Patriot[s] of Ukraine” uniting openly neo-Nazi Ukrainian organizations.

Before Troyan’s elevation to the top law enforcement position in the country’s capital, he and his fellow neo-Nazis were quite well-known to the police in Kharkiv, where they regularly beat up their political opponents as well as foreign students, migrants, and homosexuals.

And if you’re a reporter covering the conflict in Ukraine, and you have any interaction with the Ukrainian government – specifically the Ukrainian intelligence service known as the SBU – be advised that you will be dealing with Yuri Michalchyshyn, formerly the chief ideologist of the neo-fascist Svoboda party, who has been appointed head of the SBU’s “Department of Propaganda.”

Michalchyhyn is a real piece of work: as the former head of the “Joseph Goebbels Political Research Center,” he isn’t shy about his advocacy of National Socialism.

Among his political activities: organizing a torchlight parade replete with Nazi symbolism. Michalhyhyn considers the Holocaust “a bright episode in European civilization.”

Yet there has been almost zero coverage of this in the Western media, which is content to echo the US State Department’s line about how Democracy is marching onward in Kiev as Ukraine “chooses Europe” over the East.

The ugly reality is that the Ukrainian “revolution” was nothing of the sort: it was a coup rather than a revolution, and its leadership, rather than being aspiring democrats who want to be members in good standing of the West, are in fact a collection of thieving oligarchs, like Poroshenko, neo-Nazi thugs, and the usual opportunists who hang around every Western-backed “color revolution” looking for the main chance.

Standing behind them are the Western intelligence agencies who ginned up this phony “revolution,” and are now homing in on the Russians, hoping to provoke a full-scale invasion of Ukraine so as to justify their plans for a revival of the cold war.

As for the future of Ukraine: it is being set up for a full-scale fascist takeover with campaign posters featuring impaling a Jewish oligarch on a Ukrainian trident.

The selling of the Ukrainian “revolution” as a “democratic” uprising that established a “pro-Western” liberal government in Kiev has got to be one of the public relations triumphs of the century. The masters of spin who pulled this off have managed to turn black into white – but the truth is slowly emerging.

Source: Justin Raimondo/Antiwar

Official: China recognises Crimean referendum

China is against the declaration of independence by any ethnic groups through referendums, but this does not apply to Crimea, the acting director of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s European-Central Asian Affairs department, Gui Congyou, told Russian media on Friday.

“We should take a very careful and well-considered attitude to tackling nationalities’ issues. We are against any nationality gaining independence through referendums. As far as Crimea is concerned, it has very special features. We know well the history of Crimea’s affiliation,” the diplomat said.

“On the whole, the nationalities’ problems in some countries stem from double standard policies by certain states, which, proceeding from their own selfish interests, support one ethnic group and push it towards holding an independence referendum. This is a manifestation of double standards serving the interests of the United States. In a bid to achieve its aims, the US resorts to intervention in the internal affairs of other states by using force without UN Security Council authorization. China is firmly against this approach,” Gui said.

In his opinion, “such actions trigger aggravations of inter-ethnic contradictions and result in armed conflicts.”

On Russia’s stance on crisis in Ukraine

China supports Russia’s stance on settling the crisis in Ukraine, Gui Congyou stressed.

“China reacts with full understanding to the challenges and threats Russia has faced in connection with the Ukrainian issue and supports Moscow’s approach to its settlement. We are not interested in an armed conflict on the Ukrainian territory and wish to see the issue settled by political means. We are against external intervention in Ukraine’s internal affairs through government coups.”

“As for the causes of the Ukrainian crisis, in a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin the Chinese leader, Xi Jingping said that ‘there is no smoke without fire’,” Gui added.

“Personally, I believe that some states and blocs stick to the Cold War mentality and are involved in geopolitical games with the aim to infringe on the geopolitical interests of Russia. China is strongly against anyone harming the security of other countries for the purpose of protecting one’s ‘absolute security’,” he noted.

Dutch government refuses to disclose ‘secret deal’ into MH17 crash

The Dutch government has refused to reveal details of a secret pact between members of the Joint Investigation Team examining the downed Flight MH17. If the participants, including Ukraine, don’t want information to be released, it will be kept secret.

The respected Dutch publication Elsevier made a request to the Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice under the Freedom of Information Act to disclose the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) agreement, along with 16 other documents, RT reported.

The JIT consists of four countries – the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia and Ukraine – who are carrying out an investigation into the MH17 disaster, but not Malaysia. Malaysian Airlines, who operated the flight, has been criticized for flying through a war zone.

Part of the agreement between the four countries and the Dutch Public Prosecution Service, ensures that all these parties have the right to secrecy. This means that if any of the countries involved believe that some of the evidence may be damaging to them, they have the right to keep this secret.

“Of course [it is] an incredible situation: how can Ukraine, one of the two suspected parties, ever be offered such an agreement?” Dutch citizen Jan Fluitketel wrote in the newspaper Malaysia Today.

Despite the air crash taking place on July 17 in Eastern Ukraine, very little information has been released about any potential causes. However, rather than give the public a little insight into the investigation, the Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice is more worried about saving face among the members of the investigation.

“I believe that this interest [international relations] is of greater importance than making the information public, as it is a unique investigation into an extremely serious event,” the Ministry added, according to Elsevier.

Other reasons given for the request being denied included protecting investigation techniques and tactics as well as naming the names of officials who are taking part in the investigation. The Ministry said it would be a breach of privacy if they were revealed. “If the information was to be released then sensitive information would be passed between states and organizations, which would perhaps they would be less likely to share such information in the future,” said the Ministry of Security and Justice.

Dutch MP Pieter Omtzigt, who is a member of the Christian Democratic Party, has made several requests for the information to be released to the public. “We just do not know if the Netherlands has compromised justice,” he said in reaction to the ministry’s decision. The MP was surprised that this agreement was even signed, never mind kept secret.

Malaysia is the only country to have directly negotiated with the anti-Kiev militias in the East of Ukraine, while the country’s Ambassador to the Netherlands said he was unhappy that Malaysia had not been included within the JIT. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte flew to Kuala Lumpur on November 5, but Malaysia says it still did not receive an invitation to join.

“We must first be included in the JIT, otherwise it would be hard for us to cooperate in the investigation. The parties inside the investigation must include us in the team, right now we are just a participant,” said the Malaysian Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, which was reported by the New Straits Times.

A preliminary report by the Dutch Safety Board, which was released September said the MH17 crash was a result of structural damage caused by a large number of high-energy objects that struck the Boeing from the outside.

Dutch investigators added that “there are no indications” that the tragedy was triggered “by a technical fault or by actions of the crew.”

Ukraine’s gold has vanished

The disappearance of Ukraine’s gold has been confirmed, and perhaps it is time to refresh the “unconfirmed” story that a little after the current Ukraine regime took power the bulk of Ukraine’s gold was taken to the United States.

The NY Fed has still not answered requests for a comment as to whether Ukraine’s gold has been redomiciled at the gold vault located some 80 feet below Liberty 33.

According to recent data, the value of Ukraine gold should be $988.7 million. That is the value of gold proportion of gold in gold reserves is 8%. If you believe Gontareva, it turns out there is a mere $123.6 million in gold remaining.

The figure is fantastic, considering that the amount of gold at the end of February (when the new authorities have already taken key positions) was $1.8 billion or 12% of the reserves.

In other words, since the beginning of the year gold reserves dropped almost 16 times. Gold stock in February were approximately 21 tons of gold, the presence of which was once proudly reported by Sergei Arbuzov, who led the NBU in 2010-2012. So what happened to 20.8 tons of gold?

Explaining the dramatic reduction in the context of the hryvnia devaluation through gold sales is impossible. After all, 92% of the reserves of the National Bank is in the form of a foreign currency that is much easier to use to maintain hryvnia levels and cover current liabilities. Besides since March the international price of gold has plummeted. Selling gold under such circumstances is a crime. In fact it would be more expedient to increase gold reserves through currency conversion in precious metals.

As history shows, the reduction of the gold reserves in the context of an acute political crisis is usually preceded by the collapse of the state.

From iskra-news

Tonight, 07-03-2014 around at 2:00 am, an unregistered transport plane took off took off from Boryspil airport. According to Boryspil staff, prior to the plane’s appearance, four trucks and two cargo minibuses arrived at the airport all with their license plates missing. Fifteen people in black uniforms, masks and body armor stepped out, some armed with machine guns. These people loaded the plane with more than forty heavy boxes.

After this, several mysterious men arrived and also entered the plane. The loading was carried out in a hurry. After unloading, the plateless cars immediately left the runway, and the plane took off on an emergency basis.

Airport officials who saw this mysterious “special operation” immediately notified the administration of the airport, which however strongly advised them “not to meddle in other people’s business.”

Later, the editors were called by one of the senior officials of the former Ministry of Income and Fees, who reported that, according to him, tonight on the orders of one of the “new leaders” of Ukraine, all the gold reserves of the Ukraine were taken to the United States.

In an interview on Ukraine TV, none other than the head of the Ukraine Central Bank made the stunning admission that “in the vaults of the central bank there is almost no gold left. There is a small amount of gold bullion left, but it’s just 1% of reserves.”

Russian churches shelled by US-backed military in Ukraine

His Holiness, Patriarch Kirill, of Moscow and All Russia, has stated that around fifty churches of the Russian Orthodox Church have been either completely destroyed or heavily damaged as a result of actions of the Ukrainian military since the beginning of the armed opposition in Ukraine this spring.

The RIA News Agency has reported that the Patriarch delivered a speech during a meeting with students of the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Federation Ministry for Foreign Affairs at the Christ the Savior Cathedral, in which he noted: “Currently there is a forceful opposition against our Church – three clergymen have been killed, over ten priests have been arrested, detained, and tortured, and many clerics have been expelled from the country. Approximately fifty of our churches are either completely destroyed or heavily damaged by precision strikes of the Ukrainian artillery.”

Speaking about the tragic events in Ukraine, the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church noted that the Church consistently supports a position on peace, disapproves of bloodshed, and tirelessly encourages both sides to invest in dialogue and peace.

“Today there is no other peaceful force in Ukraine, but the one of the Russian Orthodox Church. Considering our historical experience, we do not identify ourselves with either of the sides of this civil conflict,” His Holiness, Patriarch Kirill, pointed out.

Putin on NATO expansion, ethnic cleansing

President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with German television that NATO expansion since 2001 significantly changed the geo-political situation.

“We have witnessed two waves of NATO expansion since 2001,” Putin said. “If I remember correctly, seven countries – Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and three Baltic States, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – joined NATO in 2004. Two more countries joined in 2009. Those were significant geopolitical game changers.

“Furthermore, the number of military bases is growing,” he said. “Does Russia have military bases around the world? NATO and the United States have military bases scattered all over the globe, including in areas close to our borders, and their number is growing.”

“Moreover, just recently it was decided to deploy Special Operations Forces, again in close proximity to our borders,” Putin said.

The president also said that Russia resumed the flights of its strategic aviation several years ago since it saw no moves on behalf of the United States and NATO to meet Russia halfway.

“You have mentioned various exercises, flights, ship movements, and so on,” the Russian president said in response to a question from the German correspondent. “Is all of this going on? Yes, it is indeed.”

“However, first of all, you said… that they have been conducted in the international European airspace. Well, it is either international [neutral] or European airspace,” Putin said. “So, please note that our exercises have been conducted exclusively in international waters and international airspace.”

In the interview with ARD Putin also said that Moscow was concerned by the risk of ethnic cleansing in Ukraine, adding that Kiev should stop using force in southeastern regions and create conditions for a political dialogue.

“It is important to stop the bloodshed, mutual attacks and create the conditions for a political dialogue. This is important. You have none of this — you have no political dialogue,” the Russian leader said.

“We are very concerned that an idea of ethnic cleansing could arise there. We are afraid of Ukraine slipping into neo-Nazism,” the Russian leader warned.

“Today there is fighting in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian central authorities have sent the armed forces there and they even use ballistic missiles.

“Does anybody speak about it? Not a single word. Does it mean that you want the Ukrainian government to annihilate everyone there, all political enemies and opponents? Is that what you want? We do not want it and will not let it happen,” he added.

“There’s one thing missing: for an understanding to be successful, stable and grow, everyone needs to have a feeling that this is their land, their home no matter what language they speak — whether it’s Hungarian, Russian, Ukrainian or Polish,” Putin told the German channel.

But he added that relations with Germany are an example to follow. “Look at the friendship that has been established between Russia and Germany in the past 10–15 years,” Putin said.

“I see it as a very good base, a good foundation for the development of relations not only between our two countries, but also between Russia and Europe as a whole, for the harmonization of relations in the world. It will be a pity if we let it go to waste,” he added.

Russia stockpiles gold

Russia has taken advantage of lower gold prices to pack the vaults of its central bank with bullion as it prepares for the possibility of a long, drawn-out economic war with the West.

The latest research from the World Gold Council reveals that the Kremlin snapped up 55 tonnes of the precious metal – far more than any other nation – in the three months to the end of September as prices began to weaken.

Vladimir Putin’s government is understood to be hoarding vast quantities of gold, having tripled stocks to around 1,150 tonnes in the last decade. These reserves could provide the Kremlin with vital firepower to try and offset the sharp declines in the rouble.

Russia’s currency has come under intense pressure since US and European sanctions and falling oil prices started to hurt the economy.

Revenues from the sale of oil and gas account for about 45pc of the Russian government’s budget receipts.

The biggest buyers of gold after Russia are other countries from the Commonwealth of Independent States, led by Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.

In total, central banks around the world bought 93 tonnes of the precious metal in the third quarter, marking it the 15th consecutive quarter of net purchases. In its report, the World Gold Council said this was down to a combination of geopolitical tensions and attempts by countries to diversify their reserves away from the US dollar.

By the end of the year, central banks will have acquired up to 500 tonnes of gold during the latest buying spell, according to Alistair Hewitt, head of market intelligence at the World Gold Council.

“Central banks have been consistently adding to their gold holdings since 2009,” Mr Hewitt told the Telegraph. In the case of Russia, Mr Hewitt said that the recent increases in its gold holdings could be a sign of greater geopolitical risk that has arisen since it seized Crimea sparking a dispute with Ukraine and the West.

Overall, the World Gold Council said that global demand for gold was down 2pc year-on-year to 929 tonnes in the third quarter amid signs that buying in China, one of the main markets, had tailed off. Jewellery demand in the quarter ending in September was down 39pc to 147 tonnes, signalling weaker consumer sentiment in the world’s second-largest economy.

However, demand for gold in India has rebounded sharply since the election earlier this year of prime minister Narendra Modi. Demand for jewellery in the world’s most populous democracy grew by 60pc year-on-year to 183 tonnes in the third quarter.

Gold prices have fallen about 7pc since October to trade at around $1,160 per ounce and the asset class is expected to post its second straight yearly loss. The precious metal has bounced since hitting a four-year low at the beginning of the week but sentiment remains weak despite the World Gold Council’s latest outlook.

Source: The Telegraph

German business leaders abandoning Merkel

German chancellor, Angela Merkel, is under pressure from leading industrialists to roll back sanctions against Russia, as some of her backers switch their support to her party’s Eurosceptic rival, the Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Merkel’s aides say she has been “annoyed” by phone calls from chief executives of large companies, demanding a relaxation of Germany’s stance towards the Kremlin in order to preserve £59bn a year in trade with Russia.

However, senior business figures, including Heinrich Weiss, head of the supervisory board of SMS, an engineering company with 13,000 employees, have switched their support from Merkel’s Christian Democrats to the AfD, which opposes sanctions.

SMS is heavily involved in both Russia and Ukraine, where a deal worth up to £118m was jeopardised by as US-led putsch.

Weiss, 72, was chairman of the Christian Democrats’ economic advisory council under Merkel’s predecessor Helmut Kohl.

“The sanctions policy is irrational because it will never influence Russian actions in Ukraine, but it is doing lasting damage to German businesses and jobs,” a senior SMS executive told The Sunday Times.

Another prominent businessman to join the AfD is Hans Wall, founder of a street furniture and outdoor advertising company, who has various business interests in Russia. He was formerly a supporter of the Free Democrats, Merkel’s junior coalition partners.

Merkel faced another setback last month when the heads of several German multinationals — including the pharmaceuticals group Bayer, BASF chemicals and the energy giant Eon — travelled to Moscow with other western businessmen to meet Dmitry Medvedev, the prime minister.

That was seen as a slap in the face for Merkel’s policy. “The last thing we need is a parallel foreign policy by industry,” one of her aides told Der Spiegel magazine.

About 300,000 jobs in Germany are believed to depend on trade with Russia.

Merkel last week rejected any lifting of sanctions and called for them to be extended.

But some of her neighbours are wavering: Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Greece and Cyprus have all indicated they would not support further sanctions because of trade with Moscow or dependence on Russian gas.

White Widow reportedly killed in Ukraine

The ‘White Widow’, a British female terrorist suspect who allegedly fought alongside ISIS terrorists in Syria and was sought internationally has reportedly been shot dead in Ukraine. The news was reported by Russia’s Regnum news agency.

Samantha Lewthwaite, 30, was allegedly gunned down two weeks ago. However, no independent confirmation was available.

Lewthwaite recently fought alongside one of Kiev’s most infamous squads – the Aidar battalion, which was condemned by Amnesty International for its unmatched cruelty in eastern Ukraine.

It was said to be “involved in widespread abuses, including abductions, unlawful detention, ill-treatment, theft, extortion, and possible executions.”

She was reportedly a sniper for the group. Her killer was also a sniper – allegedly one who travelled from Russia to fight near Lugansk.

The White Widow was deemed one of Britain’s and the world’s most wanted terrorists.

She left the country in 2009 before links to atrocities in Africa began to pop up.

A photo of fake South African passport of Samantha Lewthwaite released by Kenyan police in December 2011.

Prior to that, she had been married first to the Jamaican-born British suicide bomber, Germaine Lindsay. Her second marriage was to a British-born Muslim extremist, who was reportedly killed in a shoot-out between two splinter groups within Al-Shabab.

She was also a mother of four.

In Africa she fought with the fearsome Al-Shabab terrorist group in Somalia, who were implicated in Kenya’s Westgate shopping mall massacre of September 2013. It turned out she was actually the mastermind behind the operation.

Witnesses reported a white female among the assailants. 67 people died at the as a result of her Westgate plan.

She used a fake passport to escape Kenya to her supposedly native South Africa. That was the last anyone has heard of her until now, when she was apparently spotted in Ukraine.

German Foreign Ministry blasts media reports on MH17

The German Foreign Ministry says the media interpretation of an October statement by the president of national intelligence agency on the MH17 disaster in Ukraine was incomplete and taken out of context.

The Russian embassy in Berlin received an official response to note #3693 from October 27 regarding Germany’s Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND intelligence agency) President Gerhard Schindler’s allegations that local militia in eastern Ukraine shot down the Malaysia Airlines flight in July.

“The media interpretation of the report of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) president delivered to the Bundestag Committee overseeing intelligence activities on October 8 is incomplete and arbitrarily taken out of context,” the note says.

The ministry stressed that according to the decision of the International Civil Aviation Association (ICAA), investigation of the MH17 flight crash was handed over to Dutch authorities, authorized to exclusively deliver all information on the issue.

According to information made public by Germany’s Der Spiegel daily on October 19, Schindler delivered a statement in Bundestag on October 8 in which he claimed the militia in Ukraine’s Donetsk Region fired a rocket from a BUK defense missile system which it had captured from a Ukrainian base. It shot down the Malaysian Boeing as it was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, killing all 298 passengers and crew aboard.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who met on Monday with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on the sidelines of an APEC summit in China, has also spoken on the issue of flight MH17.

Having expressed condolences to the families of the perished passengers and Malaysian state, Vladimir Putin confirmed that Moscow insists on a complete and objective international investigation of the MH17 catastrophe in accordance with the corresponding UN resolution.

At the same time Putin disagreed with the Malaysian PM, who demanded greater access to the crash site “fully controlled by the local militia.”

“The reference that the crash site is fully controlled by so-called pro-Russian separatists is absolutely inconsistent, because it is not them, but the opposite side that is constantly shelling that territory,” Putin said. He noted that it is this shelling that prevents investigators from working properly at the crash site.

He welcomed the fact that Malaysian experts have finally got access to fully-fledged participation in the investigation.

“I’m sure your experts will contribute the necessary to the adequate investigation off this tragedy,” Putin told Razak.

An international team of investigators managed to recover more human remains from the MH17 crash site in eastern Ukraine, the Dutch prime minister announced in late October.

Still, investigators are intending to continue with the search operation and hire local contractors to collect plane debris beyond their reach, Reuters reported last week.

Soros suggests conflict to settle scores with Russia

George Soros warned the European Union on Tuesday in Düsseldorf to unite against Russia or face dissolution.

Soros, one of the world’s richest men and a tireless critic of Russia, warned that the European Union could dissolve and unravel if the 28-countries do not find a common response against Russia.

Speaking on Tuesday in Düsseldorf at a dinner sponsored by Handelsblatt, Mr. Soros, an 84-year-old Hungarian-American who survived the Holocaust said the future of the EU hangs in the balance.

The sanctions have hurt Russian and European trade, and have led to a slowdown of economic growth on the Continent. In Germany, some business and political leaders are now calling on political leaders to abandon the folly based on a complete lack of evidence of Russia’s involvement in the MH17 Malaysian air disaster in Ukraine.

The call is growing ever louder for taking up dialogue with Russia instead.

In a new book released this month, the former German chancellor, Helmut Kohl, who oversaw his country’s reunification 25 years ago and negotiated the withdrawal of Russian forces, takes aim at Ms. Merkel and European leaders for policies he said are isolating Russia.

In an interview with Gabor Steingart, the Handelsblatt publisher and the son of a Hungarian emigrant to Germany, Soros however urged Europeans to “stop” Russia’s “expansion by force”.

Russia has not used force nor has it occupied any foreign country recently, but Mr. Soros seemed undeterred by facts. He described the current status of Crimea decided at the polling booths, as an example of Russia “reasserting its military hegemony”.

NATO, rather – with the help of the US – has been training special forces to attack the Russian minority in the eastern part of Ukraine in a concerted ethnic cleansing campaign to support a US-sponsored colour revolution.

The son of Jewish parents in Budapest, Mr. Soros survived the Nazi occupation and left the Hungarian capital and Soviet control in 1947 as a 17-year-old for Britain, where he attended the London School of Economics before emigrating to the United States.

Western economic sanctions against Russia, which are limiting the ability of Russian businesses to obtain financing on the global market, are a necessary evil, Mr. Soros said. He lauded the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, for supporting EU penalties.

“I think Angela Merkel has proven herself to be a true European stateswoman in recognizing the danger that Putin represents,” Mr. Soros said.

Oligarchs, vastly underrepresenting Russian Orthodox citizens, are also unhappy with the Kremlin’s scrutiny and sending their families abroad and preparing for their own exits, he said.

Mr. Soros suggested that Europe needed to resort to violence to settle scores with Russia.