The bodies are then due to be taken to the Korporaal van Oudheusden barracks for identification. Mr Rutte said that process could “take weeks or even months.”

As militants kept international monitors away from wreckage and scores of bodies festered for a fourth day on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin urged the rebels to cooperate and insisted that a U.N.-mandated investigation must not leap to conclusions. Moscow denies involvement and has pointed a finger at Kiev’s military.

[..]

Australia – which lost 28 citizens – circulated a draft text, seen by Reuters, to the 15-member Security Council late on Saturday and diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it could be put to a vote as early as Monday.

The Netherlands, whose citizens made up most of the 298 aboard MH17 from Amsterdam en route to Kuala Lumpur, said it was “furious” about the manhandling of corpses strewn for miles over open country and asked Ukraine’s president for help to bring “our people” home.

[..]

European powers seemed to swing behind Washington’s belief Russia’s separatist allies were to blame. That might speed new trade sanctions on Moscow, without waiting for definitive proof.

“He has one last chance to show he means to help,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said after a telephone call to Putin.

Britain, which lost 10 citizens, said further sanctions were available for use against Russia. Prime Minister David Cameron, writing in The Sunday Times, said European countries should make their power count. “Yet we sometimes behave as if we need Russia more than Russia needs us.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the most powerful figure in the EU, spoke to Putin on Saturday, urging his cooperation. Merkel’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, told Bild am Sonntag newspaper: “Moscow may have a last chance now to show that it really is seriously interested in a solution.”

“Now is the moment for everyone to stop and think to themselves what might happen if we don’t stop the escalation.”

[..]

Russia said on Saturday it was retaliating against sanctions imposed by the United States last week, before the air disaster, by barring entry to unidentified Americans and warned of a “boomerang effect” on U.S. business. But Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry agreed in a phone call to try to get both sides in Ukraine to reach a consensus on peace, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said.

The U.S. State Department, however, put the onus on Russia, saying Kerry urged Russia to take “immediate and clear actions to reduce tensions in Ukraine”.

Driving home its assertion that the Boeing 777 was hit by a Russian SA-11 radar-guided missile, Ukraine’s Western-backed government said it had “compelling evidence” the battery was not just brought in from Russia but manned by three Russian citizens who had now taken the truck-mounted system back over the border.

Russian-made BUK SA-11 SAM system (“Gadfly”) as displayed at the 2013 International Aviation and Space salon MAKS-2013 (Photo: ID1974 / Shutterstock.com)

The prime minister, denying Russian suggestions that Kiev’s forces had fired a missile, said only a “very professional” crew could have brought down the speeding jetliner from 33,000 feet (10,000 meters) – not “drunken gorillas” among the ill-trained insurgents who want the Russian-speaking east to be annexed by Moscow.

[..]

“The terrorists, with the help of Russia, are trying to destroy evidence of international crimes,” the Ukrainian government said in a statement. “The terrorists have taken 38 bodies to the morgue in Donetsk,” it said, accusing people with “strong Russian accents” of threatening to conduct autopsies.

Ukraine’s prime minister said armed men had barred government experts from collecting evidence.

Kerry told Lavrov the United States was “very concerned” over reports that the remains of victims and debris had been removed or tampered with, the State Department said. He said Washington was also concerned over denial of “proper access” for international investigators and OSCE monitors.

[..]

Contrary to earlier statements by the rebels, Alexander Borodai [Self-proclaimed Prime Minister of the pro-Russian separatist “Donetsk People’s Republic”] said they had not found the black box flight recorders. He said rebels were avoiding disturbing the area.

[..]

Western countries have criticised restrictions imposed by rebels at the crash site, and have asked Russia put pressure on them to allow more access.

International observers are expected to visit the site again later on Sunday.

[..]

The US State Department said there had been multiple reports of bodies and aircraft parts being removed, and potential evidence tampered with. BBC correspondents say the crash site is still not cordoned off properly.
The BBC has learned that at least some of the bodies which have been recovered have been taken to the rebel-held town of Torez nearby.

[..]

“We do believe they were trying to move back into Russia at least three Buk [missile launch] systems,” the official said. U.S. intelligence was “starting to get indications . . . a little more than a week ago” that the Russian launchers had been moved into Ukraine, said the official.

[..]

Ukrainian officials warned that the chance for an impartial inquiry was quickly slipping away as bodies were moved and at least some plane remnants were loaded onto trucks.

International observers were allowed only brief access to the site on Saturday and were restricted in their movements by the heavily armed rebels, some of whom appeared drunk, witnesses said.

[..]

“Their key task is to destroy possible evidence,” said Andriy Parubiy, head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council. “It will be hard to conduct a full investigation with some of the objects being taken away, but we will do our best.”

[..]

Vitaly Nayda, counterintelligence chief of Ukraine’s security service, offered photographs and said Ukraine has evidence of the movement of three Buk M-1 antiaircraft missile systems from rebel-held territory into Russian territory early Friday, less than 12 hours after the plane was downed. Ukrainian officials have said that a missile from a Buk M-1 launcher was used to shoot down the aircraft.

[..]

Two of the antiaircraft systems were spotted entering Russia from Ukraine at 2 a.m. Friday, he said. One had its full complement of four missiles, but the other was missing a missile, he said. Two hours later, he said, a convoy of three vehicles that included one of the launchers and a control truck crossed into Russia.

[..]

Nayda said that Ukrainian military services had not left any operational Buk M-1 launchers in territory where the rebels could have seized them when they took over bases and territory in eastern Ukraine this year. He suggested they must have come from Russia and said Ukraine has evidence that at least one launcher system was on its territory Monday.

The rebels have denied possessing the launchers, although social media files linked to a rebel leader, Igor Girkin, appeared to boast of having the systems. The claims were deleted this week after the plane was shot down.

[..]

Fighting raged elsewhere in the region Saturday, especially in Luhansk near the Russian border, where 16 civilians were killed, according to the city council’s Web site.

The attack on the plane and the subsequent treatment of the crime scene appear to be hardening European attitudes against Russia.

Most of the 298 victims were Dutch citizens, and the chaos Saturday drew a harsh condemnation from Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who said he had told Russian President Vladmir Putin “that the opportunity is fading to quickly show the world that he is serious about wanting to help.” The Netherlands had previously been cautious about criticizing Russia, a major trading partner.

Rutte also lashed out at the rebels, saying he was “shocked by the images of completely disrespectful behavior” at the crash site. “This is outright disgusting,” he said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke to Putin on Saturday, asking him to “use his influence on the separatists” to arrange a cease-fire to allow investigators to pursue their work, a step the Kremlin said it supported.

[..]

In an op-ed column in the Sunday Times, British Prime Minister David Cameron said: “The growing weight of evidence points to a clear conclusion: that flight MH17 was blown out of the sky by a surface-to-air missile fired from a rebel-held area. If this is the case then we must be clear what it means: this is a direct result of Russia destabilising a sovereign state, violating its territorial integrity, backing thuggish militias and training and arming them.”

Cameron then called on Europe’s leaders to take action, saying that “for too long there has been a reluctance on the part of too many European countries to face up to the implications of what is happening in eastern Ukraine.”

[..]

A spokesman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said a team of 24 international observers had seen people moving bodies and putting them in body bags. The team was sharply restricted in what it could do and see, he said.

Rebels “have what they describe as experts, so-called experts here,” OSCE spokesman Michael Bociurkiw said. “They’ve brought body bags and they’re moving the bodies to the side of the road, as far as we can tell.”

In his strongest comments yet, the prime minister said Russia could not “wash its hands” of the accident and confirmed he spoke to the Russian trade minister – who was in Australia for preparations for the G20 meeting – to convey the same message.

“Russian-controlled territory, Russian-backed rebels, uite likely a Russian-supplied weapon. Russia can’t wash its hands of this,” Abbott told the ABC on Sunday.

Now, my priority today… and in coming days will be ensuring that the bodies are properly treated and trying to secure a full investigation.

Today, they were allowed less than three hours. Thus far, the separatists have only allowed monitors to have limited access to a small area. The site is not secure, and there are multiple reports of bodies being removed, parts of the plane and other debris being hauled away, and potential evidence tampered with. This is unacceptable and an affront to all those who lost loved ones and to the dignity the victims deserve.