海角大神

In a sharp challenge to Moscow, the Obama administration came close Friday to directly accusing Russian-backed separatists of destroying a Malaysian jetliner over eastern Ukraine. President Obama called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to scale back support for his rebel clients and accept an international investigation into the tragedy.

Nearly 300 people were killed in the crash of Malaysian Airlines MH 17, Mr. Obama said in televised remarks at mid-day. None of them had any connection to the civil conflict raging on the ground 20,000 feet below their flight.

鈥淭heir deaths are an outrage of unspeakable proportions,鈥� said Obama.

The president鈥檚 remarks, as well as statements from Defense Department briefers at the Pentagon and Ambassador Samantha Power at the UN, seemed a coordinated effort to try and use the MH 17 disaster as a means to end the fighting in Ukraine鈥檚 disputed areas, at least for the moment. In essence the US may be trying to use guilt and the shock of innocent deaths to get Moscow to rethink its strategy of keeping eastern Ukraine on a slow boil.

President Putin, of course, is likely to resist this way of framing the story of the airliner鈥檚 shoot-down. Moscow鈥檚 competing strategy appears to center on avoiding discussion of the actual incident, while blaming Ukraine and the US for starting a conflict that created a deadly situation for civilians.

鈥淭oday, Kiev declared a full closure of the airspace in the conducting of the so-called anti-terrorist operation,鈥� Russia鈥檚 UN ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, said Friday. 鈥淲hy couldn鈥檛 this have been done earlier, not later when [there were] hundreds of victims?鈥�

The US, for its part, was careful not to overstep the bounds of its evidence. As Obama noted, US intelligence has established that the MH 17 jet was struck by a sophisticated, Russian-made ground-to-air missile fired from eastern Ukraine. That missile was launched from 鈥渁n area that is controlled by Russian-backed separatists inside of Ukraine,鈥� Obama said.

At the Pentagon, the Defense Department spokesman, Rear Adm. John Kirby, said the US has no direct knowledge that Ukrainian separatists have actually deployed the vehicle-based anti-aircraft systems from which Russian SA-11 or SA-17 missiles are fired. The US does not know about such a system 鈥渕aking the transit鈥� from Russian territory into abutting eastern Ukraine, said Admiral Kirby.

But prior to Thursday鈥檚 tragedy US officials had publicly warned about separatist units receiving training in the operation of high-tech anti-aircraft systems within Russia. And large flows of arms have continued across the border, including tanks and armored vehicles, according to Admiral Kirby.

The US does not know whether it was a separatist unit or a Russian unit that fired the deadly missile, said Kirby. It does not know if a Russian anti-aircraft system was driven across the border and handed off to Ukrainian rebels.

鈥淏ut I鈥檇 like to just kind of bring you back to the larger point here,鈥� Kirby told reporters. 鈥淭hat is these aircraft are being shot down, and while it鈥檚 unclear exactly who鈥檚 pulling the trigger here, it鈥檚 pretty clear that it鈥檚 doing nothing to de-escalate the tension inside Ukraine and to bring this crisis to a peaceful resolution.鈥�

The question now is whether US and international pressure will convince Putin to halt or substantially scale back his support for Ukraine鈥檚 separatist movement. The current East-West confrontation over the Ukraine fighting echoes the bad old days of the Cold War and has brought US-Russian relations to their lowest point in years.

After an emergency session Friday, the full UN Security Council called for a 鈥渢horough and independent international investigation鈥� into the destruction of the airliner. At an appearance with church leaders in Moscow, Putin called for an end to fighting and an immediate start to peace negotiations in the region.