Hundreds of relatives and friends of the 298 people killed last July 17 when the passenger plane was blown out of the skies above rebel-held eastern Ukraine gave the grieving widow a standing ovation at a touching Dutch service for the victims.
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A Boeing 777 airliner owned by Malaysian Airlines was on an MH17 flightpath from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when in crashed in a militia-controlled area of Donbas in south-eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014.
Ukrainian and Western authorities say the plane was downed by a missile fired either by rebels or Russian troops who allegedly back them.
A makeshift memorial has been erected where many have come to pay their respects. According to CNN, the report, which has not yet been made public, explicitly blames the separatists, though it also faults Malaysia Airlines for not avoiding the conflict zone.
In Hrabove, villagers carrying flowers gathered in the church in the center of the village at the start of a procession to the site in nearby fields.
In Australia, Prime Minister Tony Abbott unveiled a memorial in Canberra.
Most of the participants of the march in Ukraine were women and children who were escorted by Soviet military men.
“To the memory of the dead – 298 innocent victims of civil war”, was written on the gravestone, where a Russian Orthodox priest and a mullah said prayers. Ukraine used its right at once and handed over investigative management to the Netherlands, since Dutch citizens accounted for the largest share of those killed in the crash, he said.
During a rememberance ceremony on Friday Rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko, who arrived at the commemoration ceremony on crutches, accused the Ukrainian government of taking down MH17.
Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko, who will attend a service in Kiev, said on Friday it was a “moral duty” to find out who was behind the downing of the plane.
“It would not have happened without a direct order from the highest political and military leadership of the neighbouring state [Russia]”, Poroshenko said.
There were 38 Australian victims of the crash. Some kissed the bouquets before they placed them, others kissed their fingers and pressed them against the plaque.
Footage from the MH17 disaster shows Russian-backed rebels handling bodies and rummaging through the bags of dead passengers as they express shock that the aircraft they brought down was a commercial aircraft.
The video was actually first aired by the BBC days after the tragedy in 2014, although not in whole, due to its graphic nature.
CNN couldn’t immediately verify whether the video is authentic or who the people in it are.
The Kremlin said in a statement that Mr Putin had “explained Russia’s position regarding the premature and counter-productive initiatives of several countries, including the Netherlands, on the establishment of an worldwide tribunal”. The majority of victims travelling on the MH17 Ukraine flight were from the Netherlands, killing 193 Dutch people.
Five countries with nationals involved in the disaster – Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine – have established a criminal probe of the crash and are expected to release a final report in October.
Russia, which holds a veto on the Security Council, opposes setting up a tribunal.
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The undisguised aversion shared by Saakashvili and Russian President Vladimir Putin helped set off a five-day war in 2008 that resulted in Moscow’s effective takeover of two of its southern neighbour’s separatist regions.
