Ukraine separatists, likely culprits in MH17 downing, hold memorial at crash site
  • 9 years ago
Here, in this field of wildflowers, 298 people aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crashed to Earth after being shot out of the sky one year ago. But Friday's memorial ceremony, coordinated by separatist leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) — on whom a glut of evidence places responsibility for downing the airliner — was overtly propagandized.Some 30 young men and women, representing the so-called republic's youth wing, were bused in for the event. They complained about the heat, and being forced to wait more than two hours for DNR officials to arrive.They were joined by about 200 Ukrainian villagers, for whom the downing of MH17 was indeed traumatic. Together, the group unenthusiastically waved the DNR's black, blue and red flags — still creased from the packages from which they were pulled this morning — and carried ready-made banners accusing Kiev of killing innocent people in its ongoing fight with Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine's war-torn east.