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Russian experts apportion full blame for Malaysian jet crash to Ukrainian authorities

ALEXANDROVA Lyudmila 
Ukrainian authorities, which are unable to put an end to anarchy and tumult in the country, bear the full brunt of responsibility for the crash of the Malaysia Airlines’ Boeing 777 jet crash

MOSCOW, July 18. /ITAR-TASS/. Ukrainian authorities, which are unable to put an end to anarchy and tumult in the country, bear the full brunt of responsibility for the crash of the Malaysia Airlines’ Boeing 777 jet crash in the east of the Donetsk region Thursday.

They say that the world community cannot tolerate a situation of this kind any longer and it should set up a no-flight zone over the territory of Ukraine.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, disappeared from radar screens and fell in the Donetsk region Thursday afternoon. The altitude at which it was traversing the area was open for international transit flights, since the Ukrainian authorities did not restrict air traffic at the altitudes exceeding 9,600 meters.

The leadership of the unrecognized Donetsk People’s Republic said it had nothing to do with the crash. “The self-defense forces don’t have the armament systems capable of bringing down a jet at an altitude of ten kilometers,” Sergei Kavtgaradze, a spokesman for the government, said.

“We have shoulder-carried missile launchers that reach out to altitude of 3 km to 4 km at the most,” he said.

The authorities of the DPR said entire blame for the airliner’s downing should go to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

“Responsibility for the tragedy - whatever the results that the investigation may produce - is borne by Kiev because it’s the Ukrainian authorities that are to be blamed for letting the jet into that area,” said Vladimir Zharikhin, First Deputy Director of the CIS Research Institute.

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