MOSCOW, July 18, /ITAR-TASS/. Circumstances of the Malaysian jet crash in Ukraine and first contradictory remarks by Ukrainian officials demonstrate that the current Kiev authorities are incapable of controlling their territory and the air space over it and cannot guarantee safety of flights, according to experts polled by the Political Analysis Centre.
“In any case, this is the fault of the Ukrainian authorities, which cannot control the air space and are incapable of protecting people’s lives,” said Nikolai Mironov, the director of the Institute of Top-priority Regional Projects. “This is a bad sign for Ukraine signaling that the local authorities cannot control the situation. It is worth looking at declaring Ukraine’s territory a no-fly zone. Otherwise, aircraft will have to act as in Afghanistan - to opt for maximum altitudes in order to be out of reach of missiles.”
Maxim Zharov, a political observer, shared this point of view. “Russia should request the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to completely ban civil aircraft flights over Ukraine,” he said, adding that this deadly air accident in Ukraine should prompt the world community to exert serious effort to put an end to the conflict in that country. “It is yet to establish whether it was a deliberate provocation of the Ukrainian military that have run out of control or a tragic accident stemming from flagrant unprofessionalism,” he said. “One thing is now absolutely obvious - the Ukrainian conflict has spilled over the limits of the post-Soviet space and all global nations should pool efforts to stop it.”
Russia, according to Zharov, must insist on immediate all-round investigation under the auspices of the United Nations and the International Civil Aviation Organization.
Pavel Danilin, the director general of the Political Analysis Centre, pointed to an alarming fact - adviser to the Ukrainian interior minister Anton Gerashchenko accused Donetsk self-defence forces of using the Buk missile defence system to down the plane. “Immediately after the plane crashed near Donetsk, when the crash area was not yet reached by anyone, let alone the Kiev authorities, Gerashchenko was absolutely sure it had been shot down,” he said, adding that the mere fact Gerashchenko was so confident about it looked “strange.”
According to Daniling, the crash of the Malaysian jet is playing into the hand of the current Ukrainian leaders. “No one knows whether they had planned this or were involved indirectly. But no one but the Kiev authorities may take advantage from the accident, which diverts attention from the overall collapse in the country, from the current defeats in the eastern regions. Moreover, it makes it possible to shift the blame on the eastern self-defence forces,” he said.