MOSCOW, July 23./ITAR-TASS/. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott in a telephone conversation with President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday thanked him for Russia’s constructive role in helping with the investigation into the Malaysian plane crash in eastern Ukraine in July 17.

Putin and Abbott noted “the need to stop the armed hostilities (in eastern Ukraine) as soon as possible”, including in order to ensure full access to the crash site by international experts, the presidential press service said.

The Boeing 777 airliner of Malaysia Airlines, flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, crashed on July 17 in Ukraine’s Donetsk region in the area of combat actions between the local militias and Ukrainian government troops. All 298 passengers on the plane were killed in the crash. The majority of the passengers - 193 people - were citizens of the Netherlands.