The deaths of the 298 passengers have thrust this industrial part of eastern Ukraine to the center of a tense, international crisis. The recovery effort has been plodding, in part because the state all but collapsed after this area was taken over by armed rebels this spring.

Peter van Vliet, an expert from the forensics unit of the Dutch national police, said to a throng of television cameras in front of the dusty white train station, “I think the storage of the bodies is of good quality.” He then turned away and walked back with his colleagues to the train. Of the passengers and crew on board the flight, 193 were Dutch citizens.

Even after the tragedy, the bodies themselves have gotten caught in a political tug of war. The Ukrainian authorities accused the rebels of blocking access to the site and refusing to hand over the remains. The rebels, in turn, said they would hand over the bodies only to international representatives, not to Ukrainians.

Neither side recognizes the other, further complicating the process. At one point, Ukraine’s government sent a letter to the rebels in Donetsk, addressing it, “To Whom It May Concern,” according to a copy provided by Sergey Kavtaradze, a spokesman for the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic government.

By late afternoon on Monday, an agreement had been reached. The Malaysian prime minister, Najib Razak, said in a statement that his government had been working “behind the scenes with those in charge of the MH17 crash site” in rebel-held territory.