RUSSIAN president Vladimir Putin has the blood of Australians on his hands, and is now hiding the evidence of his crimes.

But blame the West, too, for its fatal weakness.

In fact, the Abbott Government hopes to use the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines MH17 to persuade the West to muscle up at last to Russia.

It is Russia — under Putin’s policy of securing his borders — which helped pro-Russian militias seize parts of eastern Ukraine, making them near lawless.

BLOG WITH ANDREW BOLT

It is Putin’s Russia which supplied those thugs with arms, almost certainly including the BUK SA-11 missile launcher suspected of shooting down MH17, cruising 10,000m overhead.

It is a Russian colonel in a Russian military headquarters who was taped, according to Ukrainian intercepts, receiving a call from a rebel commander telling him: “We have just shot down a plane.”

It may even be Russia, the Government suspects, which supplied the operators of the sophisticated SA-11.

The US agrees, telling the UN Security Council: “Because of the technical complexity of the SA-11 it is unlikely that the separatists could effectively operate the system without assistance from knowledgeable personnel, thus we cannot rule out technical assistance from Russian personnel in operating the system.”

Ukraine’s head of intelligence on Friday claimed phone intercepts proved Russia had at least three SA-11 operators in the area.

So Putin created the conditions for the crime and almost certainly provided the weapons, too. It also probable he provided the men who pulled the trigger.

And now he’s helping to hide the evidence. True, Putin may have only partial control of the separatists, but he’s shown no sign of exercising it to Australia’s benefit.

Factfinders from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe were on Friday hustled away from the crash site by separatist gunmen, led by a man who seemed drunk.

The aircraft’s black box has been given to “authorities”, some separatists say, but not to Malaysia, European investigators or anyone neutral. Evidence on the ground seems to have been tampered with.

Ukraine even released a YouTube clip showing a SA-11 launcher, minus a missile, being transported back to Russia, it claims.

And in a final insult, the bodies of our dead were left for at least three days lying in the fields, in what Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said on Sunday was a “disgraceful” lack of respect.

Asked if Russia was guilty of a “cover-up”, Truss said only it was “too early to make that judgement”.

Still, if Russia thinks it can get away with this, it’s because the West has let it get away with so much already.

When Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 and created two friendly breakaway regions, Europe and the US did nothing.

When Russia this year snatched the Crimea from Ukraine, Europe and the US imposed only weak sanctions.

When Russia then helped pro-Russian forces seize parts of Ukraine, the US still refused Ukrainian appeals for lethal weaponry to defend itself.

And if Putin needed any more encouragement, he had only to look to the Middle East, which has exposed Obama as the weakest US president for at least a century.

Obama weakened US support for Israel, pretended a terrorist attack on his Libyan consulate was just a protest against a film and pulled out too early from Iraq, surrendering it to jihadists.

And he’s the man who warned Syria it would cross a “red line” if it used chemical weapons but then did nothing when it did.

No wonder Putin grabbed what he liked from Ukraine. Who’d stop him?

Not Europe, which has never been weaker militarily and, critically, depends on Russia for a third of its gas.

Even Germany, Europe’s strongest nation, needs Russia for a quarter of all its energy from gas, oil and coal.

The Netherlands, which lost at least 192 citizens on MH17, is also humiliatingly dependent, recording an astonishing $23 billion trade deficit with Russia in the first nine months of this financial year.

And, God, does that dependence show now.

German chancellor Angela Merkel has called for an independent investigation but has not criticised Russia, saying she wants lines of communication kept open.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte also refused to attack Russia, telling Putin only that the crash site must not “be tampered” with and a full investigation permitted.

Only later did the British Government issue a statement — still vague — saying Rutte and British Prime Minister David Cameron “agreed that the EU will need to reconsider its approach to Russia in light of evidence that pro-Russian separatists brought down the plane”.

Obama, too, was initially muted, making Prime Minister Tony Abbott the first world leader to attack Russia directly, naming it as the chief suspect in supplying the fatal weapon.

Abbott also linked the tragedy to Russian foreign policy in Ukraine, declaring: “The bullying of small countries by big ones, the trampling of justice and decency in the pursuit of national aggrandizement, and reckless indifference to human life, should have no place in our world.”

A furious Russia called Abbott’s attack “unacceptable”, but Abbott is trying to make sure Europe and the US now realise Ukraine is their problem, too.

The Government believes Ukraine’s struggle with its separatists can no longer be dismissed as a local issue now that it’s cost the lives of 298 Europeans, Asians and Australians.

So Abbott and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop have worked the phones to muster a joint response, starting with an international investigation that can reach into Russia.

Of course, it’s easier for Australia to rage against Russia. We have no gas taps Russia can turn off in winter.

That at least makes us freer to make a stand, starting with disinviting Putin from the G20 summit in Brisbane should Russia not cooperate with the investigation the Government wants the UN Security Council to authorise. Russia holds the power to veto council resolutions.

But we are not so alone. Obama has belatedly echoed Abbott’s attack, warning Russia: “This outrageous event underscores that it is time for peace and security to be restored in Ukraine.”

And he urged Europe to finally stand against the bully, saying MH17 was a “wake-up call for Europe and the world”. This is the Abbott Government’s thinking, too.

Yes, Ukraine may seem a long way from Australian concerns, but we’ve been reminded again that no part of the world now is too distant to hurt us.

Let Afghanistan fall to the Taliban and we get September 11.

Let Syria drown in blood and we get dozens of Australian jihadists.

Let Putin’s mates dismember Ukraine and we see an airliner carrying Australians blasted from the sky.

Time the West found its strength again. Lives depend upon it.