UNITED NATIONS, August 8 (RIA Novosti) - Ukraine’s derailment of the ceasefire in the area of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 crash site violates the United Nations Security Council's resolution which demanded the lull in order to investigate into the tragedy, Russia’s Ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin said late Thursday.
“Of course, the ceasefire was established by the resolution 2166 so it was obvious that it was a clear violation of that resolution and something which have very grave consequences for the ability of the international inspectors to conduct this investigation when they choose to return to the site,” Churkin said.
Churkin said the Russian delegation was disturbed after Ukraine on its official government website declared an end to the ceasefire around the zone in which Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 crashed on July 17.
“We were very disturbed to see today on the official portal of the Ukrainian government a statement of the Ukrainian government which said that since the international investigators has decided to suspend their work at the crash site, the ceasefire is no longer in effect and they also tried to implicate this decision of international investigators stating that the international investigators have agreed with this decision to suspend the ceasefire,” Russia’s Ambassador to the United Nations said late Thursday.
Churkin also noted that “the Russian delegation raised the issue of the implementation of Resolution 2166, and several hours before, we circulated a press statement which was supposed to urge the Ukrainian government to reconsider this decision.”
However, after Ukraine's mission to the UN heard of the initiative, they sent a letter to the President of the Security Council that “the statement on the portion of the Ukrainian government was not true and that the ceasefire continues to be in effect.”
Several Security Council members blocked the draft statement. Churkin said these members “reacted in their typical way, adamantly against any kind of criticism of the Ukrainian authorities.”
Despite that, he stressed, the “statement led to certain actions by the Ukrainian government and their forces to impede further continued investigation and compromise the crash site.”
Churkin concluded that Resolution 2166 “needs to be implemented in its entirety.”
Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed in eastern Ukraine killing all the 298 people on board, including 85 children. Kiev authorities and independence supporters have been trading blame for the downing of the plane, with independence supporters insisting they lacked the technology to shoot down a target flying at such a height. The US continues to place the blame on Russia who allegedly provided weapons to the self-defense forces.
