Putin given 48 hour ultimatum to let investigators probe MH17 crash site,

Putin given 48 hour ultimatum to let investigators probe MH17 crash site, as Cameron, Merkel and Hollande say they are 'ready' to hit Russia with fresh sanctions

• PM spoke with Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande this morning
• Leaders agreed the EU needed to be prepared to hit Russia with sanctions
• European foreign ministers set to meet in Brussels on Tuesday 
• PM earlier accused EU of showing lack of 'resolve' over Ukrainian crisis
• Cameron also likened crisis to Europe's appeasement of Hitler in the 1930s
• Philip Hammond said Russia had to 'dramatically' change its behaviour  
• Foreign Secretary to chair emergency Cobra meeting at 1pm today 
• The Prime Minister is expected to call Vladimir Putin this evening 

By TOM MCTAGUE, MAIL ONLINE DEPUTY POLITICAL EDITOR

PUBLISHED: 10:42 GMT, 20 July 2014 | UPDATED: 15:00 GMT, 20 July 2014

 
 
 
 

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Britain, France and Germany this afternoon warned Vladimir Putin to grant international investigators immediate access to the MH17 crash site in Ukraine - or face fresh sanctions on Tuesday.

The leaders of Europe's three most powerful countries, who spoke on the phone this morning, said they were 'ready' to increase economic pressure on Russia if it did not deliver within the next 48 hours.

It came after the Prime Minister attacked European leaders for being too soft on Mr Putin. Mr Cameron accused the EU showing a lack of 'resolve' in refusing to face up to Russia and suggested the world was now paying the price. 

Mr Cameron also likened the crisis to Europe's appeasement of Hitler in the 1930s.

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Vladimir Putin has the power to 'snap his fingers' and stop the crisis in Ukraine but is failing to do so, said Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond this morning

The Prime Minister likened to failure to tackle Vladimir Putin to the appeasement of Hitler in the 1930s, while Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said Russia risked becoming a 'pariah state' if it carried on arming and backing rebel militias

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Germany's Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande said they were ready to hit Russia with fresh sanctions

RUSSIA 'BACKING THUGGISH MILITIAS' WHICH DOWNED MH17

The Government has openly accused Russia of arming and supporting the Ukrainian rebels who shot down flight MH17.

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said: 'The Russians have influence, if not direct control, over these people.

'They have been supplying, they have been supporting them, they cannot deny their responsibility for the acts these people are carrying out.'

'There a growing number of strands of evidence, which looked at together in the round, lead the reasonable person to the unavoidable truth that this was a missile fired from rebel-held territory, almost certainly a missile supplied by the Russians.'

The Prime Minister has said the conflict 'could have been stopped by Moscow'.

He said all the evidence pointed to the fact that 'Flight MH17 was blown out of the sky by a surface-to-air missile fired from a rebel-held area'.

Mr Cameron said: '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.'

In the wake of the joint ultimatum today, Mr Cameron is expecting to talk with Mr Putin this evening.

The crunch talks come amid increasing global outrage over the downing of flight MH17 - and the behaviour of the rebel soldiers in the aftermath of the missile attack.

The rebels were today accused of moving bodies and fragments of plane in an attempt to destroy evidence, amid growing certainty that a rebel missiles were used to bring down the passenger jet.

Armed separatists today said they had recovered the black boxes from the downed aircradt and taken them to rebel-controlled Donetsk where they will be handed over to international investigators.

Rebel leader Aleksander Borodai told a press conference in Donetsk: 'Some items, presumably the black boxes, were found, and they have been delivered to Donetsk and they are under our control. There are no specialists among us who could pinpoint the look of the black boxes, but we brought to Donetsk some technical items which could be the black boxes of the airliner.'

The orange data recorder was taken from the crash site by a man wearing a uniform in what is still pro-Russian rebel controlled territory.

Yesterday Ukrainian emergency services were gathering bodies, putting them in bags and piling up at the crash site.

But they say armed rebel soldiers then took them away to an unknown location in the night - today revealed to be a refrigerated train carriage in the rebel-held town of Torez.

A Downing Street spokesman said the UK, France and Germany had agreed that they must be 'ready' to hit Russia with further sanctions on Tuesday if the rebels did not allow immediate access to the site.

The spokesman said: 'All three leaders agreed that the immediate priority is to secure access to the crash site and to ensure that specialist teams are able to recover the victims and return them home.

'They agreed President Putin has an important role to play by persuading the separatists to grant access and to work with the international community to ensure that all that needs to be done can be done as soon as possible.

 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2698917/It-time-stop-appeasing-Putin-resolve-Cameron-Hammond-warns-EU-veiled-dig-Merkel.html#ixzz381SBOBzq
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