Ukraine preparing to receive 700 armed personnel of mission to secure MH-17 crash site
The Dutch-led mission will be formed from military and civilian personnel of the Netherlands and Australia
KIEV, July 29. /ITAR-TASS/. The international mission to secure the MH-17 crash site in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region will be allowed to carry and use arms, the Ukrainskaya Pravda newspaper reports with reference to the text of a relative agreement between Ukraine and the Netherlands.
Of the 298 people killed in the Malaysia Airlines Boeing crash, 193 were Dutch.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko proposed to the national parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, to ratify the agreement at its extraordinary session on July 31.
The Dutch-led mission will be formed from military and civilian personnel of the Netherlands and Australia. “The mission will comprise no more than 700 armed personnel,” the document says. It will have freedom of movement in the Ukrainian territory to the sites of the investigation of the airliner crash. “The mission personnel will be allowed to carry arms and use them for self-defence in their operations,” says the agreement.