Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR)

Member of European parliament urges recognition of DPR

The MP of the 7th session from the party Forza Italia, Fabrizio Berto announced in the conversation with journalists that the international community has to take the results of elections in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) seriously and recognize the state forthwith.

As Fabrizio Berto explains:

I have a big work experience in a quality of observer. First of all, I observed that the organization of the process correspond European standards. I saw that people were happy to go to the elections. They were to wait for a long time in queues to enter the cabin to give the vote. And this fact is a confirmation of their ability to create their destiny themselves. I think that it wouldn’t be so in Italy.

He pointed out that the results of these elections reflect aspiration of people whom were seen by international observers at the electoral constituencies. The representative of the European Parliament stressed the common values of Europe:

We were also on the Saur-Tomb and saw military conditions, in which people live. I would like to say that both Ukrainians and Russian, inhabitants of the European Union have to have one common value, it is human life.

International experts have still not arrived at MH17 crash scene

The international community has been accusing the anti-Kiev forces on the ground of mishandling bodies and evidence at the crash site.

A day earlier a spokesperson from the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Aleksandr Borodai, accused the international community of lacking enthusiasm to investigate the plane crash.

The Dutch foreign minister said his country was “furious” to hear bodies were being “dragged around.” Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott described the crash site in the territory controlled by anti-Kiev forces as “absolutely chaotic.”

Borodai explained all of the actions undertaken at the site of the crash were dictated by urgent humanitarian need to take care of the decomposing bodies.

The bodies of 196 MH17 crash victims have been placed inside refrigerated train carriages, according to the leadership of DPR, with international experts still not at the crash scene.

The DPR once again said it was waiting for the international experts to come and said it guaranteed their security, but wanted the Kiev authorities to agree to a ceasefire in turn, according to statement by DPR’s deputy PM, Andrey Purgin.

“We declare that we guarantee security of international experts at the site of the tragedy if Kiev agrees to a ceasefire,” the statement reads as cited by RIA Novosti. “We call on Kiev to immediately sign this agreement with DPR at least for the period of time while experts are going to work at the site of the plane crash.”

Meanwhile, foreign journalists got to a station where a train with the dead bodies stood. Their tweets from the site made many internet users wonder why journalists were able to make it to the crash scene, but experts could not.

The carriages at the Torez station were reportedly examined by the OSCE observers, who said there were 196 bodies inside.

That has not been confirmed by Alexander Hug, deputy chief monitor of the OSCE special monitoring mission to Ukraine, who said his team had actually seen body bags in the train carriages but were unable to count them, Reuters reports.

Representatives of the special mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Ukraine do have access to the crash site of a Malaysian Boeing-777 in eastern Ukraine, a representative of the mission, Michael Bochurkiv, told Itar-Tass on Sunday.

Earlier, the U.S. Department of State spokeswoman Jen Psaki expressed concern over the alleged failure of OSCE observers to reach the crash site.

“This is an element of information war against us,” Borodai said in an interview with Ekho Moskvy radio station, noting that “Fourteen OSCE observers have been working at the airliner’s crash site already for three days. In fact, on the first day they faced some restrictions in their movement. But we explained this by a very simple fact: we are responsible for their security.

“The air disaster area is very big and exceeds more than ten square metres,” Borodai added, noting that “When they entered the zone, which is precisely in sight of Ukrainian machine guns, patrolmen stopped them [OSCE observers]. They proposed to them [OSCE observers] not to go there for one simple reason that if they had come under Ukrainian machine gun fire, responsibility would be shouldered on us.”

Source: RT/Itar-Tass

Black box will show who redirected MH17

As reported earlier by RIA, the Russian Defense Ministry says it had intercepted the activity of a Ukrainian radar system on the day the Malaysian plane went down in eastern Ukraine, the ministry’s press service said Friday.

“Throughout the day on July 17, Russian means of radar surveillance intercepted the operation of the Buk-M1 battery’s Kupol radar station located in the region of the populated area of Styla [30 kilometers south of Donetsk],” the press service said in a statement.

“The technical capabilities of the Buk-M1 allow the exchange of data on air targets between batteries of one battalion. Thus, the launch of rockets could have also occurred from any of the batteries deployed in the populated area of Avdeevka [8 kilometers north of Donetsk] or from Gruzsko-Zoryanskoe [25 kilometers east of Donetsk],” the ministry said.

Then we go to Itar-Tass which reported that civil flights in the air space of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions cannot be performed as the relevant communications infrastructure was destroyed there, a source from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) told ITAR-TASS on Thursday.

“Kiev operates all air traffic control services and it is unclear how this plane (the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 that crashed in eastern Ukraine near the Russian border Thursday night. — ITAR-TASS) could appear in the area,” he said.

“During the combat actions in Donetsk’s airport the communication tower, a part of the united air control service was blown up,” he said adding that “planes cannot fly there.”

On July 8, Ukraine’s State Aviation Service banned all flights over the Donetsk and Luhansk regions aiming to provide “adequate safety and security for all flights of civil aircraft in favor of state aviation.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council took a decision to close the airspace over the area of the so-called anti-terror operation to commercial flights three days ago, Rosaviatsia reported.

It is not clear why flight MH-17 diverted from its usual trajectory to fly over what was effectively restricted airspace.

Qantas hasn’t used the route for a few months, said Andrew McGinnes, a spokesman for the Australian carrier, while Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific said it has been detouring for “quite some time.” Korean Air Lines Co. and Asiana Airlines Inc. said in statements they have been avoiding the area since March 3.

Questions about the flight path, and where the instructions to change it came from, will be answered when the contents of the flight black box are released.