Pressure Grows on Putin as Dutch Reach Crash Victims

[unhappycamper]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/22/world/europe/putin-calls-for-talks-in-ukraine-and-a-robust-crash-investigation.html?_r=0

Pressure Grows on Putin as Dutch Reach Crash Victims
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN, SABRINA TAVERNISE and NEIL MacFARQUHAR
JULY 21, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine — A pair of Dutch forensics experts finally gained access on Monday to the remains of the victims from the downed Malaysia Airlines jet in eastern Ukraine after days of standoffs over access to the site and growing pressure on President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to clear the way for a full international investigation.

European leaders threatened new sanctions on Russia as soon as Tuesday, suggesting they were increasingly open to the harder line being taken against Moscow by the United States, which has accused Russia of providing the surface-to-air missile system that brought down the jetliner, training rebels in how to use it, and perhaps even supplying experts who helped to fire it.

Mr. Putin issued a brief statement early on Monday saying that Russia would work to ensure that the conflict in eastern Ukraine moved from the battlefield to the negotiating table. He said that a robust international investigating team must have secure access to the crash site, but also accused unspecified nations of exploiting the disaster in pursuit of “mercenary political goals.”

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Even as the pair of Dutch forensic experts arrived on Monday in the town of Torez in eastern Ukraine, where the bodies of the victims have been collected in refrigerated rail cars, the Ukrainian prime minister, Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, said that pro-Russian rebels who control the area were preventing the train from leaving.