MOSCOW, July 31 (RIA Novosti) – Heavy fighting using BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launchers continues near the Malaysia Airlines Boeing crash site in eastern Ukraine, despite calls from the United Nations to stop military activity in the area, an advisor to the Ukrainian interior minister said Thursday.
“BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launchers are operating at the crash site. According to some information sources, the approaches to the crash site have been mined. We are waiting until brave Ukrainian servicemen clear the territory so that international experts will be able to start working,” Anton Heraschenko said in an interview with Latvian radio station Baltkom.
The advisor said the Boeing crash site is not currently controlled by Ukrainian troops.
Malaysia Airlines MH17 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur went down in Donetsk Region in eastern Ukraine on July 17. All 298 people on board, including 85 children and 15 crew members, died in the crash.
A group of international experts and monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has been unable to reach the Boeing crash site and start an investigation for several days due to continuing military action in the area.
Experts reached the crash zone on Thursday for the first time in a week, but came under a mortar fire, a RIA Novosti correspondent said.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko promised to stop attacks in the area, but fighting intensified as Ukrainian authorities said they wanted to “clean up” the territory from militia.
Earlier, Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin told the UN Security Council that Ukraine “immediately violated” its commitment to cease military activity in the zone around the crash site.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also expressed serious concern over continued fighting in the area.
