Footage has been released by pro-Russian rebels at the scene immediately after the plane came down. Courtesy: BBC

Footage has been released by pro-Russian rebels at the scene immediately after the plane came down. Courtesy: BBC

THE bodies of the MH17 victims, including up to 39 Australian citizens and residents, will be transferred to Amsterdam as soon as possible, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk says.

Some 251 bodies are currently in refrigerated trains in rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine.

Mr Yatsenyuk said the “bloody guerillas don’t allow the train to leave” the station at Torez.

But when they do, the Ukrainian government plans to send the victims’ remains to the Netherlands.

“We are ready to transfer all the bodies directly to Amsterdam,” the Prime Minister told reporters in Kiev, adding the Dutch had “perfect forensic expertise” to identify the bodies.

The Netherlands will lead the identification process working with the international community and Ukrainian authorities.

Thirty-one international investigators have flown to Kharkiv within the last few hours including “three representatives of the Australian embassy”.

Kharkiv is closer to the crash site than Kiev but still within Kiev-controlled territory.

It’s where an international co-ordination centre is being established.

NEW VIDEO SHOWS MILITANTS ON SCENE

The news about the transportation of the bodies comes as the BBC releases new video showing the Russian militants at the still-smouldering scene shortly after the crash of MH17.

The video, obtained by journalist Fergal Keane, shows the militants rummaging through passengers’ luggage and discovering the plane’s black box flight recorder.

“They’re foreigners, who allowed them to fly over here?” the BBC translated the militants as saying in the footage.

A senior militant orders the others to collect all the USB memory sticks they can find from the crash site, saying “information is the most important thing”.

Mr Keane suggests that the local militants may have provided the footage because they personally do not believe they have done anything wrong.

RUSSIANS EXPRESS THEIR SORROW

In the wake of the MH17 disaster, it seems Russians have more empathy than Vladimir Putin, as more of them leave notes asking for the world to “forgive” them.

The Dutch Embassy in Moscow has been inundated with tributes and flowers after the plane disaster, which killed 298 people.

While Russia’s leader has avoided taking any responsibility for the attack on the Malaysia Airlines aircraft so far, Russian citizens have been leaving flowers and even signs that say “forgive us.”

More of these tributes have been left at the embassy over the last few days, indicating there is a proportion of the population who do believe Russia is potentially at fault and has an obligation to act against rebels who control the area where the plane was shot down in east Ukraine.

"Forgive us" says this note outside Dutch embassy in Moscow while Kremlin still denying Russian involvement. #MH17 pic.twitter.com/jJLoRfNQ5i — Dimitri Lotovski (@LotovskiCBS46) July 21, 2014

AUSTRALIAN TEAM IN UKRAINE TO ENSURE ‘JUSTICE IS DONE’

The images of these honest tributes have emerged as former Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston has been sent to Ukraine as Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s “personal envoy” at the head of a 45-man team to ensure “justice is done”.

The former defence force official, who also led Australia’s failed search for the wreckage of missing Malaysia Airlines MH370, is already in Kiev, the Prime Minister said today.

Mr Abbott described the investigation and crash scene as “shambolic”, saying the site where the plane crashed looked more like a “garden clean up than a forensic investigation”.

“This is still an absolutely shambolic situation.” he said.

“It is imperative that we get a properly secured site, and a proper investigation. In order to bring them home, we have to first get them out. That is what all of our energies and efforts are directed to — getting them out and getting them home.”

An Australian air force transport aircraft was on standby if needed for this purpose, he said.

Mr Abbott has also begun contacting the families of the 37 Australians killed in the MH17 disaster.

He said he spoke with two families who had lost loved ones in the disaster.

“My intention is to call all of the families of victims who would like a call from their Prime Minister. Some may want calls, some may not. I do not want to intrude on anyone’s grief, but I want them to know their Prime Minister is available to them in a time like this.”

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Mr Abbott also repeated his concerns that Russia ensures “full and unfettered: access to the site.

“The mood of the leaders I have spoken to is firmer and sterner now than it was ... and frankly it is firmer and sterner as it should be as more and more facts emerge,” he said.

Mr Abbott would not say whether Russian President Vladimir Putin had expressed any responsibility for the disaster during their recent phone conversation.

However, he described their talk as “wider ranging” and “more frank” than Australian discussions with the Russian ambassador and the minister for economic development, who was in Sydney for a G20 trade ministers’ gathering.

FAMILIES PLEAD: Give our loved ones back

RUSSIA: Pointing the finger at everyone else

World leaders had firmed against Russia because of mounting evidence MH17 had been shot down by pro-Russian rebels, “quite possibly supplied by the backer”.

“As for my conversation with Mr Putin, I’m not going to go into details ... To Mr Putin’s credit, he did say all the right things. The challenge now is to hold the President to his word.”

The government has sought advice on whether it can designate the disaster an act of terrorism, therefore allowing families of the victims to access federal compensation.

“I think what’s compounded that is looking at what’s happened to the wreckage, what has happened on the site,” Mr Abbott said.

He demanded authority for the crash site be taken from the rebels, who he said were almost certainly culpable for the tragedy.

“Having those people in control of the site is a little like leaving criminals in control of a crime scene,” he said.

“Every day that goes by the bodies are deteriorating ... (and) the site is further contaminated.” As long as the bodies and the crash site remained under the rebels’ control, there would be “interference after interference, impediment after impediment”.

Acting Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek said Labor backed the decision to send Houston to Ukraine on behalf of Australia.

She also said it was “critical” for President Vladimir Putin to support the proposed UN Security Council resolution, and to use “every bit of its influence with rebels” to ensure investigators get full access to the crash site.

RUSSIA’S PRESIDENT BREAKS HIS SILENCE

In responding for the first time about the MH17 crash and investigation, Mr Putin said: “This task force is not enough.”

“We need more, we need a fully representative group of experts to be working at the site under the guidance of ICAO, the relevant international commission.”

“We must do everything to provide security for the international experts on the site of the tragedy ... In the meantime, nobody should and has no right to use this tragedy to achieve their ‘narrowly selfish’ political goals.”

PUTIN’S MH17 STATEMENT: Read the full document here (Google translate)

FINAL ROLE: Last hours of MH17’s ‘flying mothers’

This morning pro-Russian rebels confirmed they had what they thought were the black boxes of the doomed Malaysian Airlines flight in their self-declared capital of Donetsk in Ukraine’s east.

For days it had been rumoured the Pro-Russian separatists controlling swathes of east Ukraine had removed the vital flight recorder boxes from the MH17 aircraft wreckage.

AUSTRALIA SUBMITS UN RESOLUTION

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has today circulated a draft United Nations Security Council resolution demanding “full and unfettered access” to the crash site.

A vote is set for Monday at 3pm in New York which is 5am Tuesday AEST.

“Decency and justice requires that this resolution be carried by acclamation,’’ Mr Abbott told media this morning.

“But as we all know these are difficult and daunting times and it is wrong to be too certain about what the future might hold.’’

HELL ON EARTH: Horror of MH17’s final resting place

The document condemns the shooting down of MH17 “in the strongest terms” and demands that those responsible be held to account. It also expresses serious concerns that armed groups have “impeded immediate, safe, secure and unrestricted access to the crash site and surrounding area.”

The draft resolution “demands that the armed groups in control of the crash site and the surrounding area refrain from any actions that may compromise the integrity of the crash site and immediately provide safe, secure, full and unfettered access to the site and surrounding area for the appropriate investigating authorities.”

It “calls on all states and actors in the region to cooperate fully in relation to the international investigation of the incident, including with respect to immediate access to the crash site ... in an effort to strengthen the safety of international civil aviation and to prevent any recurrence of such use of force against civilian aircraft.”

Ms Bishop called for an urgent vote on the resultion by the United Nations Security Council — a process which could take place as soon as today.

Earlier this morning Ms Bishop told media it was “imperative” that the victims of MH17 be released.

“This is not a time to use bodies as hostages or pawns in a Ukrainian-Russian conflict,’’ she told reporters in Washington.

The government was determined to secure an independent investigation that was ``impartial and thorough and competent and able to determine who is responsible for this so they can be brought to justice’’.

“I would expect Russia to fully support any resolution that seeks to secure the site and establish an independent investigation,” Ms Bishop said.

LOCALS SPEAK: ‘Birds falling from the sky’

Russia, as a permanent member of the council, has the power to veto the resolution.

“Australia has a lot at stake here,’’ she said.

“They have been murdered and the Australian government will not rest until we’re able to bring the bodies home to the Australian families who are waiting for them.’’

Ms Bishop also said she had been briefed by British and US intelligence officials.

MH17 PROBE COULD TAKE A YEAR

The head of Australia’s transport safety body has warned there will be no quick answers to the downing of MH17, saying it could take up to a year to complete an investigation.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau dispatched two senior investigators to Kiev to assist an international inquiry into the disaster.

But chief commissioner Martin Dolan dampened expectations of a speedy determination.

“We normally say as investigators it can take up to a year to get a firm result,” he told reporters at Canberra airport.

“It’s quite possible that there will be no quick response to this.” Mr Dolan said it was “disappointing and upsetting” to see Russian-backed rebels tampering with evidence at the crash site in eastern Ukraine, which has been a target of international condemnation.

BODIES ON THE MOVE

Ukrainian emergency workers have confirmed they had now retrieved 251 bodies and 86 fragments of bodies from the downed Malaysian flight MH17.

The workers, in distinctive red vans and blue overalls, worked late into the evening searching underwreckage and through the fields for the remains of the 298 passengers and crew from the flight.

Under the precarious situation in the region though, they reported their find to the government in the Ukrainian capital Kiev but also the administration of the self-styled separatist movement in the city of Donetsk known as the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR).

DPR controls the region where the aircraft went down and so the workers have had to hand the bodies over to them. The militia are storing 200 of them in four refrigerated trains in the nearby city of Torez. There are mixed reports as to where the train is to go with the government in Kiev preparing for it to go to the eastern city they control called Khirkiv but the rebels preparing to send the train to the port city of Mariupol. There are also reports the train could be sent to Kiev.

At the moment it remains at unaccessible sidings in Torez.

Some bodies are also reportedly being kept at one of four morgues in Donetsk.

Michael Bociurkiw, a spokesman for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said reports from the group’s investigators in Ukraine suggest some bodies were incinerated without a trace.

“We’re looking at the field where the engines have come down. This was the area which was exposed to the most intense heat. We do not see any bodies here. It appears that some have been vaporised,” he said from the crash site.

The official from the morgue declined to say why the bodies were now being transported to the seaport.

“They will stay there for now, until the issue (of what to do with them) is resolved. We are waiting for the experts,” said Sergei Kavtaradze, a senior official of the pro-Russian rebels’ self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic that controls the region where the Boeing was downed.

Meanwhile, Australian experts are on the ground in Ukraine waiting to help identify victims of the MH17 crash.

A team of international forensic experts is waiting for the refrigerated train to be released from the village of Torez near the crash site.

Dutch diplomat Kees van Baar said his country would lead the expert team which would identify the bodies.

“There are Australian experts in the team — they are part of the team,’’ he confirmed.

“If these bodies are being released they will be met by a team of international experts and they are going to be identified.

Mr van Baar revealed no next of kin had yet arrived in Ukraine.

“There’s no question as such right now of relatives arriving (because) we don’t know where the bodies will go to right now.’’

It’s been suggested the train could travel to the Ukrainian-controlled city of Kharkiv.

REBELS CALL THE SHOTS

Rebel leader Alexander Borodai had last week said he knew nothing of the flight recorders — which could detail the moment the aircraft crashed from an altitude of 10,000m — but now he has confirmed his movement had them.

“Jet parts resembling the black boxes were discovered at the crash site,” said Alexander Borodai, prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic overnight.

“What we have is just some components of the plane. We are not experts; we think that they may be black boxes but we’re not sure.”

He didn’t give specifics but said they would be handed over to the International Civil Aviation Organisation once they came to the region.

He also insisted his rebels had not interfered with the site despite clear evidence to the contrary.

Adding to growing claims that pro-Russian rebels had done just that, Ukraine’s security services yesterday released purported intercepts of phone conversations between rebel militants discussing the location of the plane’s black boxes.

In one exchange, a man identified as the leader of the rebel Vostok Battalion, Alexander Khodakovsky states that two recording devices are being held by the head of intelligence of the insurgency’s military commander.

The commander is then heard to order the militiaman to ensure no outsiders, including an international observation team near the crash site at the reported time of the call, get hold of any material.

The man identified as Khodakovsky says he is seeking information about the black boxes under instructions from “our high-placed friends ... in Moscow.” The security service says all the recordings were made on Friday, but the authenticity of the recordings cannot be independently verified.

The rebel’s admission came as US Secretary of State John Kerry accused them of being behind the outrage.

US President Obama had earlier said the rebels could not have carried out the attack without Moscow’s support but, in an interview with CNN, Mr Kerry went further, accusing Russia directly of handing over the missile system that was used to shoot down the plane.

”We know with confidence, with confidence that the Ukrainians did not have such a system anywhere near the vicinity at that point in time. So it obviously points a very clear finger at the separatists,’’ Kerry told CNN.

He also slammed as “grotesque’’ the manner in which “drunken separatist soldiers’’ were allegedly “unceremoniously piling bodies into trucks, removing both bodies, as well as evidence, from the site’’.

Pro-Russian rebels reject Mr Kerry’s claims.

The rebel chief explained that fighters had moved scores of bodies “out of respect for the families’’.

“We couldn’t wait any longer because of the heat and also because there are many dogs and wild animals in the zone,’’ Borodai said.

‘RESPECT THE BODIES’

The Prime Minister says Australia will do everything in its power to ensure the bodies of 37 Australians killed on Flight MH17 are respected and justice is done.

Mr Abbott attended a national security committee of cabinet meeting on Sunday evening after images emerged of the crash site in eastern Ukraine being “absolutely trampled”.

Local emergency workers have begun using angle grinders to cut up the Malaysian Airways flight MH17 aircraft as the crash scene remains littered with personal affects and important flight log books and passports of those aboard the doomed flight.

In a scene that highlights the chaotic state of the aviation investigation and the eastern Ukrainian region in general, local emergency workers are tearing at the wreckage to look for bodies, potentially unwittingly destroying vital evidence.

Mr Abbott earlier last night told 60 Minutes that a national security meeting yesterday had been dominated by concerns to ensure the bodies were treated with respect and taken to a place where a proper investigation could be carried out.

“We owe it to the dead, all the dead, we owe it to the families, all the families to do everything in our power to respect the bodies, to find the truth and to ensure justice is done,” Mr Abbott told 60 Minutes.