ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now Malaysia Airlines MH17 came down in Eastern Ukraine on Thursday, it’s now Sunday of course and yet bodies, wreckage and perhaps vital evidence remains strewn across several miles of countryside.  In just a moment I’ll be speaking to Ukraine’s Acting Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Andrii Kuzmenko, a very good morning to you Mr Ambassador.  Now first of all I know that you managed to have a few words with our very own new Foreign Secretary in what we call our Green Room, he was just on the programme.  What is Ukraine asking for from Britain?    

ANDRII KUZMENKO: Well first of all this is not just the tragedy in Ukraine, this is a tragedy of Europe, this is a tragedy of all the world and we need support, we need understanding and we need all the possible means to receive to stop the aggression at the Ukrainian territory.  

DM: We need to find out once and for all, don’t we, what happened to this aircraft, we need to get in there and we need to repatriate those bodies.  We have to get them out of those fields, get them identified and get them home. 

ANDRII KUZMENKO: First and foremost, Ukraine is quite motivated to establish the truth.  We have established the international commission with the participation of the countries interested in including Malaysia, Germany, the Netherlands.  We offered the specific procedures for visa regime countries just to come to Ukraine for participation in the work of that commission and just even the relatives of those who died in that catastrophe, we offered special kind of hospitality for them and established the special crisis centre where the information assistance could be provided.  Unfortunately this is not the behaviour of separatists at the site and we are witnessing not just one crime of the terror attack committed but we are witnessing right now the second crime on the way, this is the attempt to clean out the site, to wipe the real trace of somebody’s involvement.

DM: So to prevent that happening further and for all the humanitarian things to happen that we have just been discussing, get the relatives there even if they want to go there safely, would further military assistance be required by Ukraine, some escorts from NATO, from the United Nations perhaps?  Is that something that Ukraine would request?

ANDRII KUZMENKO: Well at the moment probably it is premature to speak about that.  We have enough military capabilities to ensure our victories under the conditions that the Russians will stop the shipment of the military equipment and the military assistance of the terrorists, paid by them and inspired by them.  We are facing very difficult times.  The mortar and rocket shelling from the Russian territory to Ukrainian troops located at the territory of Ukraine became, well, obvious for a moment.

DM: You mention the armaments, we are hearing from your own Security Council this very morning that Russia is still supplying the rebels with heavy weaponry, it hasn’t stopped.

ANDRII KUZMENKO: It has not stopped.  Not this but the night before, the military convoy of fifteen heavy military tracks or tanks or rocket launchers was detected by the Ukrainian intelligence crossing the Russian/Ukrainian border so it seems to me that the Russian authorities and all the people who are standing behind the terrorists, they have not learned a lesson.

DM: Is it the Ukrainian view that sanctions, however heavy they may be coming from the West, and in particular from Europe, that this will be enough to force President Putin in Russia to see sense?

ANDRII KUZMENKO: Let’s be realistic.  For the moment, the sanctions we have are not equal to the seriousness of the situation. 

DM: So give us some specific proposals, what would you like to see happen? 

ANDRII KUZMENKO: We were thinking, we were thinking about the third phase of sanctions which should cover not just certain individuals prevented from entering the European Union and certain banking accounts but the sanctions against the sectors of the Russian economy, critical sectors of the Russian economy which is energy, resources, trade.  We remember the situation at the end of the 80s obviously in the last century when the prices for oil went down rapidly and it was the reason, amongst the reasons for the dissolution of the former Soviet Union, since the Moscow authorities at the time did not hear the word of truth.

DM: Do think in particular there is a German reluctance to go as far as you want?

ANDRII KUZMENKO: I would like not to make any commitments but of course some European countries, they own financial interests in full scope [categoration] of Russians. It could be banking sector, it could be gas supply, it could be the military technical categoration.  We are living in a very interconnected word and this implication and this significance of this is doing this. 

DM: I just wanted to return to the tragedy but what do you make of some of the suggestions coming out of Russia?  We have heard many different variations of it but that in some way Ukraine itself could have been involved in this attack, that it benefits Ukraine in the eyes of the world.

ANDRII KUZMENKO: We are witnessing terrible phenomenon of reappearance in the 21st century, the media inspired by this type of propaganda.  There is myths being spread in the Russian media and what is most terrible is that the Russian people, they believe to that media.  For example it is a very widespread example that the crash of the airliner was caused by the attempts of the Ukrainians to hit down Mr Putin’s air jet, he was flying from Brazil back home, however it is difficult to have even the imagine that the flight from Warsaw to Moscow could go through South and East Ukraine and of course they are still trying to find the American trace, if I may to say, in that.  Yesterday I saw a few Russian TV programmes, it was not the fun for me, it was a very difficult job to see and particular people on the Moscow streets, they say yes, this is the Americans, this is the Ukrainians.  That is why we are so motivated to establish the truth and the Ukrainian government will do its best to ensure it.

DM: Mr Ambassador, thank you very much indeed.  Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Andrii  Kuzmenko.