Pro-Russian rebels place land mines at crash site: Ukraine

Pro-Russian separatists have sunk to a new low to scrub their fingerprints from the wreckage of downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 — planting land mines around the crash site to keep investigators away, Ukrainian officials charged on Wednesday.

“[The rebels] have brought a large number of heavy artillery there and mined approaches to this area,” said Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko, referring to the debris strewn fields where plane and body parts remain exposed to the elements.

“This makes impossible the work of international experts trying to start work to establish the reasons behind the Boeing 777 crash.”

Lysenko said that even if Ukrainian forces are successful in driving the separatists away from the scene of the July 17 crash, it will take time to remove the mines and make the area safe for the investigators.

The shocking accusation, which could not be confirmed by independent reports, came as a contingency of international observers and investigators were blocked from accessing the crash site for a fourth straight day due to intense fighting in Ukraine’s volatile eastern regions.

Two vehicles filled with members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, set out from the rebel-held city Donetsk to the crash site approximately two hours away.

But the envoy only got as far as the city’s outskirts, where they encountered rebel forces and were “warned of gunfire on the route and in the surrounding areas,” according to Dutch officials.

“We don’t expect the security situation to improve enough over the next few days to make this possible,” said Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, head of the Dutch-led recovery mission.

Ukrainian officials had previously accused the rebels of manipulating evidence and trying to wipe out traces of their involvement in shooting down the plane, and said the mines lining the roads to the site is further evidence that the rebels are trying to stall the investigation.

The United States and other Western officials say they believe the jet was blown out of the sky by a Russian made Buk missile launcher fired by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.

The separatists deny shooting down the jet, which was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, and say the Ukrainian government may be responsible.

Since then, 227 coffins have been sent to the Netherlands for identification, along with the plane’s black box, which confirmed the plane was struck by a surface-to-air missile.

But a Ukrainian campaign to reclaim territory lost to the rebels has made the site around the crash zone a killing field in recent days, preventing investigators from reaching the scene.

As a result, several bodies continue to rot in the midsummer heat, deepening the frustration of relatives desperate to recover the bodies of their loved ones.

“The families of the victims of this horrific tragedy deserve closure and the world demands answers” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. “International teams must be allowed to conduct their work.”

With Post wire services.