You're reading: Rebels shelling Boeing 777 crash site in Donetsk region

Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council has said that the government forces involved in a military operation in the east of the country are complying with an agreement to stay clear of a 40-kilomeer radius of the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 but that rebels shell the crash site.

“We have information that the militants time and again open fire against the aircraft crash site, including with the use of mortars and artillery, in order to destroy evidence,” council spokesman Andriy Lysenko told a briefing in Kyiv on July 28.

He said government forces had come closer to the crash site but confirmed that the site itself remained under militants’ control.

In explaining why government forces had still not taken control of the crash site, Lysenko cited the 40-kilometer radius agreement and said the site lay in a hollow and was of no strategic value.

Malaysian Airlines’ Boeing 777, which was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, had 298 people aboard when it crashed in DPR-controlled territory. All of them died.

Earlier, the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic said that a group of OSCE officials and international investigators was unable to visit the crash site on Sunday because of local battles.