Co-chair of Euro Parliament Greens went to Ukraine, reports back
DW: You went to Ukraine right after the plane crash in the east of the country (18.-21.07.2014). Have you got a clearer sense of who was behind it?
Rebecca Harms: There have been several incidents lately where Ukrainian army jets were shot down in eastern Ukraine. In those cases it was always the self-proclaimed separatists who brought those planes down with Russian special weapons systems. It is looking increasingly likely that whoever says the separatists shot down the Malaysian plane is right. The blockage of the crash site, the fact that those franctireurs didn't allow relatives and international experts to access the site – all of that seems to suggest that they're trying to cover the tracks.
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And what do people in the city of Slovyansk say, which until a short while ago was a separatist stronghold?
Of course you can't make general assumptions based on individual conversations. But the first thing I heard from people there was 'We pray that something like this never happens again.' I saw how many people in Slovyansk want to support Ukrainian soldiers. But their criticism of the government in Kyiv continues as well. Saying that you support the Ukrainian side doesn't necessarily mean you support everything Mr Poroshenko and Mr Yatsenyuk are doing in Kyiv.
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Will the EU tighten sanctions?
As cynical as that may sound: in the space of a few hours, the heads of state and government have now experienced what people in Ukraine have been experiencing for months. When they were in Brazil, Mrs Merkel and Mr Putin called on Mr Poroshenko to negotiate with the self-proclaimed separatists. And now it's dawning on all heads of state in Europe that those are lawless, unethical militia who you can't talk to. I've returned with two core demands. There must not be an automatic development into war. And to me, the most important idea is to close the Russian-Ukrainian border. If you can get Russia's consent to that more easily through sanctions then I'm all for it.
http://www.dw.de/rebecca-harms-theyre-covering-the-tracks/a-17798518
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