Putin Pressured to Open Airliner Crash Site to Investigation
PAUL: It's 29 minutes past the hour right now. So glad to have your company this morning. Thank you. I'm Christi Paul.</s>BLACKWELL: I'm Victor Blackwell. We continue our coverage now of that crashed Malaysian jet and the reports rebel gunmen are keeping investigators, at least some of them, from the crash site of flight 17.</s>PAUL: Meanwhile, Germany is urging Russia President Vladimir Putin to pressure the rebels to let the investigators in. Malaysian Airlines has just issued its latest list of the 298 people from 11 nations who were onboard the flight when it crashed. Most of the passengers we know came from the Netherlands. There was one American onboard as well.</s>BLACKWELL: International observers at the crash site say they have been hearing gunfire, explosions this morning, and witnesses say some human remains are being put into body bags and moved to the side of the road.</s>PAUL: The Ukrainian government is accusing pro-Russian rebels of removing more than three dozen bodies and destroying evidence.</s>BLACKWELL: Let's bring back Chris Cuomo, the co-host of CNN's NEW DAY. He's live there from the crash scene in eastern Ukraine.</s>PAUL: Chris, I know we spoke to you about half an hour ago, but what have you noticed on the ground there in the last half hour?</s>CUOMO: Well, there's just such a tragic set of circumstances here, beside what we're all trying to deal with, which is processing the victims here and finding out what brought this plane out of the sky. There's this show of force. Because there's such rabid ongoing conflict, there's a big influence on the part of this local militia, or separatists, or whatever you want to term them, to show force. So they'll come out with guns and raise their weapons in the air. And then they'll be joking and want photographers to take their pictures in front of the fuselage. And it's really disturbing because the dignity of those who lost their lives here, it's just -- the situation deserves better. It could be better. And I know that we have so many levels of reporting going on right now, why this may have happened and the politics of it, and who Russia says did it and the U.S. and Ukraine. That will all continue until you get dispositive answers that come from pieces of evidence like that. That part of the tale tells an entire story to a trained investigator. It doesn't mean much to me. I know what a body looks like. I know who's being disrespected. There are bags on the side of the road. Victor was absolutely correct about that. They can do better than that. It's very dangerous to get here, but they could be much more hospitable in letting people in. And it's just not going on.</s>BLACKWELL: As you mentioned the bodies there in bags on the side of the road, do we know what will happen with those bodies after that?</s>CUOMO: We were actually holding up last night at a place called Kharkiv which is a few hours away from here. We have been told bodies would be taken there to are identified. Victor, as you know, and Christi, because you know this is our job, you have to know how to do that. I'm not going relate what we are seeing here, but I promise you, not just anybody can say what it is they're looking at after something like this. And so we don't know what they're doing with them, and they are not in the mood to take questions. All they want to do is tell you, go where I tell you to go. Ukraine did this. And, why are you so upset about this tragedy and not the one that's happening to us at the hands of Kiev every day? That's what they're saying. And I get where their coming from. This is an ongoing conflict. There's no question that there's literally violence as we speak somewhere in this region. But this situation demands better and it's really horrible that it's being drawn out this way.</s>PAUL: You speak of the dignity, and I'm sure families are watching this closely, and it's just stomach turning. But why do you think, Chris, they are holding off investigators so much but they're allowing people to come in and take pictures? And correct me if I'm wrong. I think you said the villagers and local people are the ones collecting these bodies right now. Yes?</s>CUOMO: Yes, Christi that is my understanding. We just interviewed a couple's minors, and they had volunteered. They'd been asked to, who knows if they felt they could say no, but they've been walking around in this field looking for bodies, putting them in the bags and carrying them back to the side of the road. Why are they acting this way? They're in an active state of conflict. They're fighting over their territory. For them they feel they're in a fight for their lives. I think you're dealing with, frankly, a lack of sophistication and an overabundance of macho with these guys. They're much more important to being perceived as powerful than being perceived as competent in conducting an investigation and protecting the dignity of the lives that were lost here despite that the irony that they may be in the circle of suspicion of why this happened. So I think there are a lot of reason, and none of them are good, for why they want this place theirs and be in control, but none of acceptable. And until a message is sent to the men on the ground that they're not in control, that they have to conduct themselves differently, it will not change from what it is.</s>BLACKWELL: Chris Cuomo there, giving us a look and a description, although we cannot see some of it, and we probably shouldn't broadcast it, what is happening there in that field in eastern Ukraine. Chris, thank you so much.</s>PAUL: Thank you, Chris, very much. Let's talk to CNN aviation analyst Mary Schiavo and retired general James "Spider" Marks. General, I want to start with you, and thank you both for being with us. When you hear what Chris is saying about the fact that these pro-Russian rebels are allowing villagers to come in, they're allowing pictures to be taken, but they're keeping investigators out, what does that say to you? GENERAL JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS</s>CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Clearly, in my mind, Christi, what's happening on the ground is, and they're taking advantage of their presence, their position on the ground. They are establishing themselves as in control, and I would say they're protecting a crime scene so that the evidence doesn't go to somebody else. The larger story here clearly is, what's the international outrage about this? How is the United States going to take a leadership position and call Putin for what he is? Clearly, he's responsible for this. This is a war that he could stop. And clearly, from an intelligence guy's perspective, if I could step beyond the humanitarian disaster for a second, and say what other form of terror will we see? What other jihadists might show up on this battlefield like every other battlefield over the course of the decade and realize this could be an opportunity to replenish military equipment, learn new techniques and then export those elsewhere? So this is a tragedy that goes through a number of layers.</s>BLACKWELL: Mary, many believe that this weapons system was moved from the Russian side of the border into Ukraine and then we saw the video. We believed it was moved back. In the context of tragedies in the past, speaking specifically of 83, the KL-007 flight that was shot down, is there a credible concern that these pieces of the plane will now move from one side of the border to the other?</s>MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, absolutely, and not just the pieces of the plane. You know, there's no indication where the bodies are being taken. All of this crime scene evidence, and that's what this is. These are criminals guarding their own crime scene. It's really outrageous. But before they move anything what you do in a good investigation is both the law enforcement and criminal investigators, since it's a crime scene, and the aviation investigators grid the whole crash site area so they can put and piece together the evidence after the fact. And only then once they have gathered the forensics is anything moved, are bodies taken away, and they're certainly taken away in a more dignified manner. So not only is evidence of the crime being spirited away, not to mention the block boxes which we really need to find, but this is not how you process an accident scene or a crime scene.</s>PAUL: General Marks, we have a report today from Reuters that Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have met, that they have at least spoken and agreed that there is a need to urgently stop the hostilities in Ukraine's southeast and begin peace talks. Do you think there's any gauge of what Putin -- does he really want that? What does he really want and how does he go about remedying this, if it was, indeed, an accident by rebels that he was supplying equipment to?</s>MARKS: You know, Christi, the issue is a very, very broad one. The response could be very in-depth. I promise I won't go there. Putin could stop it. He has acquiesced to date. Number one he has supplied and supported and has instigated this ungoverned state, this turmoil that exists in eastern Ukraine. Remember, he annexed Crimea and the world kind of went, well, I guess that's normal. So he's establishing a new barrier in terms of what we're tolerate. He could stop this immediately by putting his foot down and saying, enough. Stop supplying the Russian separatists, agree to having, as Mary indicated, a legitimate and open investigation of what took place. But more importantly, he needs to raise his hand and say, look -- he's never going to say he's culpable, but could start to lean in and begin to embrace what could be a solution that at least gets to this very, very tragic occurrence that took place, and then behaviors will change from that. He could have forces on the ground right now. He was very easy. He got into Crimea. He could have forces on the ground in eastern Ukraine right now, his Russian forces. The international community would yell and scream, but he could isolate the area. He could then move those separatists away, and then he could go away and say, OK, now we have a space where we can have an investigation and get to the bottom of this thing.</s>BLACKWELL: General Spider Marks, Mary Schiavo, thank you, both.</s>MARKS: Thank you, folks.</s>PAUL: Thank you. It's been more than four months since the disappearance of the other Malaysian Airlines flight, but a woman whose loved one was on that plane, on MH-370, has a message for the families of those killed this week, and she's going to join us, live.