Australian PM Tony Abbott is one of the first high ranking government officials to put Russia firmly in the frame for the shooting down of Malaysian flight MH17.
Speaking earlier in a radio interview he said that he had called in the Russian ambassador for an explanation and was deeply unsatisfied with the response when questioned about the fact that Russian-backed rebels were behind the attack;
“I have to tell you that the initial response of the Russian ambassador was to blame Ukraine for this and I have to say that is deeply, deeply unsatisfactory. We all know that there are problems in Ukraine. We also know who is very substantially to blame for those problems and the idea that Russia can somehow say that none of this has anything to do with them because it happened in Ukrainian air space frankly does not stand up to any serious scrutiny.”
If it was found that Russia was behind the incident then he said there may be repercussions but that he would wait until further details were known.
The US have also primed the possibility of Russian responsibility by saying earlier that they cannot rule out technical assistance from Russian personnel on operating the missile systems and Russia’s UN envoy has just popped up on Reuters saying that pressure should not be brought on any investigations with statements trying to prejudge the outcome.
It seems to me that we’re going to get a lot of “skating around the facts” over Russia’s direct or indirect responsibility. As I said earlier, until we get any full on finger pointing the markets won’t be spooked.
