LONDON, July 20 /ITAR-TASS/. Britain will seek to tighten sanctions against Russia, if Moscow does not help in investigating a Malaysian airliner crash in east Ukraine, UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said on Sunday.

"What we need is full Russian co-operation; any evidence they [the Russians] control needs to be turned over to the international investigators. They must use their influence to allow international access to the site to secure the evidence and secure respect for the bodies and the possessions of the victims," Hammond said in an interview with the BBC.

The UK Foreign Secretary urged Moscow to put pressure on east Ukraine’s militia to allow more access to the crash site, adding that Russia had allegedly done nothing to facilitate the airline crash investigation.

The Malaysia Airlines Boeing-777 passenger airliner on the flight from the Dutch city of Amsterdam to the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur crashed in the area of hostilities between local militias and Ukrainian governmental troops in east Ukraine’s Donetsk region on Thursday, July 17. All 298 people aboard the airliner died in the air crash.

The UK would seek to persuade the EU "to go further in terms of sanctions" ahead of a meeting of foreign ministers on Tuesday, unless Moscow’s position on the Malaysian Airlines crash changed, the British Foreign Secretary told the BBC.