- US state secretary accuses ‘some’ Russians to be ‘leading, supporting, training’ terrorists, says it was clear that SA-11 missile was transferred from Russia into hands of terrorists
- Hinting on possibility of more sanctions, Kerry urges Putin to engage with separatists directly for hostages’ release and ceasefire
Appeared on multiple political talk shows on Sunday to make the administration’s case on the conflict in Ukraine, US Secretary of State John Kerry said that the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was a “moment of truth” for Russia in which Russian President Vladimir Putin needed to “exert all of the influences they have” to protect the integrity of an investigation into what happened.
Making his case to a foreign news channel, Kerry said that some Russians were “leaders of the separatists and trained the separatists, support the separatists, and have to date not publicly called on the separatists to stand down or to be part of the solution.”
The attack involved an SA-11 missile, he said, adding that separatists had an SA-11 right in the vicinity hours before the shoot.
To CNN, Kerry said, “It’s pretty clear that this is a system that was transferred from Russia into the hands of separatists.” The United States detected a missile launch at the time of the crash from separatist territory, he said, and in the wake of the incident, a separatist leader was “bragging on the social media about shooting down a transport plane. And then when people learned it was a civilian aircraft, [they] pulled that off of the social media.” He claimed that the United States also has “video showing a launcher moving back through a particular area there, out into Russia, with at least one missing missile on it.”
But this evidence, he argued, wasn’t enough. That’s in part because the crash scene had been compromised, with “drunken separatist soldiers, piling bodies into trucks,” as Kerry described it to Fox News Sunday.
“We need an investigation, not the secretary of state just listing things that we do know, but a further investigation with international investigators with their trained personnel,” Kerry said, “with the people who can put all of the evidence together and draw the appropriate conclusions so that we don’t have a he-said-she-said finger-pointing back and forth.”
On the Obama administration’s reaction to the attack and effectiveness of existing sanctions, Kerry said, “What we are doing now is trying to bring our European counterparts along. Four percent of Russia’s trade is with the United States. 50 percent of their engagement is with Europe. So we’re trying to encourage our European friends to realise this is a wake-up call, and hopefully they will also join us in these tougher sanctions.”
Kerry said that he had been in contact with his Russian counterpart. “Yesterday, I had a discussion with Foreign Minister [Sergei] Lavrov,” he said. “It was a direct and tough conversation. We’ll see if anything happens as a result of that.”
On ABC’s “This Week,” Kerry said, “President Putin should publicly call on the separatists — he should engage in public support for the cease-fire. He should engage with the separatists directly in order to release the hostages they have taken. He should encourage them immediately to engage in a political process that could bring peace to the region.”
