HRABOVE, Ukraine — Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists agreed Saturday to set up a security zone around the crash site of a Malaysia Airlines jet to allow the orderly removal of the bodies of the 298 people killed in the shootdown of MH17 over eastern Ukraine two days ago.
The Malaysian airliner — en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur with 283 passengers and 15 crew members — crashed into rebel-held territory Thursday after being hit by what U.S. officials say was a SA-11 surface-to-air missile. There were no survivors.
In a related development, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Ministere Sergei Lavrov agreed in a "frank discussion": by phone Saturday that all evidence in the case be turned over to independent, international investigators, the ITAR-TAss News agency reports.
"During the frank discussion, the minister and the secretary, without mincing words, exchanged assessments and arguments and agreed on the main point that it is necessary to ensure an absolutely impartial, independent and open international investigation of the Malaysian plane crash in Ukraine on July 17,"the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement."
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) should play a leading role in the investigation, the statement said.
Lavrov and Kerry agreed that "all evidence, including flight data recorders, should be made available for examination as part of an international investigation and that all necessary conditions should be created on the ground to ensure access for the international team of experts".
In Kiev, Ukrainian Security Service head Valentyn Nalyvaychenko said in televised remarks Saturday that trilateral talks, involving Russia, had agreed on a 7-square-mile security zone "so that Ukraine could fulfill the most important thing — identify the bodies (and) hand them over to relatives," Ukrinform reports.
The announcement of an agreement followed charges by Ukraine that local militia in the restive eastern Ukraine region near the Russian border had removed at least 38 bodies from the crash site near the village of Hrabove.
On a dirt road near the site Saturday morning, separatist officials from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic's ministry of internal affairs began moving bodies in what appeared to be an unorganized and ad hoc operation.
At one point, about 15 bodies had been laid out on the rural road.
"Experts are removing the bodies," a separatist soldier who identified himself as Commander Ugriumny and seemed to be in charge told reporters. "Where we will move them, we will wait and see."
Until the soldiers arrived in a 10-vehicle caravan, the golden fields in this remote region near the Russian border were virtually empty, except for the decomposing bodies, some still strapped to their airline seats, and wide swaths of plane wreckage. There were no emergency services vehicles, no separatist soldiers.
The militiamen, who began setting up a perimeter, cordoning off the area and putting up tents, scoffed at charges by the Kiev government that bodies were being removed from the scene.
"No one stole any bodies," said Commander Ugriumny. "Or have taken them anywhere."
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