Photo if pro-Russian fighter and child's toy

Yes Tegan, people do have to tread carefully, but doesnt there come a time when governments should just be blunt and tell Putin that this just isn't acceptable? Even in conflict there are rules, and respect for the dead is one. If Putin wants to be taken seriously on the world stage, and not just mocked as a fantasist and despot, then he has to take charge of this before it is too late. It is too late for those poor souls on the plane, but not too late to take charge of the situation, close off the crash site and recover the bodies and take them somewhere for identification and eventual return to their families. It has kept me awake, thinking how I would feel if this was one of my children. I am pro-Europe and think this is one of those times when being part of a huge entity should be used to advantage, and political and more importantly, economic power wielded.Starting with kicking a few of Putin's cronies out, their money is keeping him there, and their money is paying for these terrible weapons. I haven't felt so strongly about something for a long time

I think everyone has to tread very carefully at the moment . It's a very worrying situation.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/nov/30/activities-of-conservative-friends-of-russia

Oh Gill- how heartfelt and I so agree. The Dutch PM did speak out tonight but Cameron is being very quiet - anything to do with those obscenely rich Russians living in London who are welcomed into the homes of the establishment?

It is time that Putin was told that this atrocious behaviour is unacceptable. It is generally acknowledged that Russia supplied the weapons that shot down the plane, the men waving guns around are stupid dangerous zealots, and I couldnt bear to think of any of my family lying in a field while the so called freedom fighters pick over their belongings. Putin and his men are monsters and we kid ourselves in the west if we think he is a good guy. No world leader is without fault, but he is beyond belief. I hope that the Dutch for one send the Russian diplomats home, and the rest of the European Union follows suit.

There are always layers to these events. I don't actually trust anyone. And oil is often involved in one way or another.

The whole point Tegan is that this is being allowed to happen - in normal civilised circumstances, it wouldn't but these pro Russian separatist murders fully backed by Putin are running the show.

I saw the news on [I think] the BBC. I didn't like what I was watching,,it seemed so intrusive and disrespectful . Shall avoid the news for a while, I think.

Just watched C4 news - heartbreaking - jingle you should be ashamed of your apologist views

Yes I can imagine that ordinary decent people would do that with no support from anyone in authority who are just trampling over the wreckage and pilfering the belongings

There was a horrific account in The I today, with the local people who had found bodies falling into their gardens and homes. Apparently they are doing their best to find and mark the bodies and, if possible, cover them up with whatever they have. There doesn't seem to be any organised investigation yet.

Yes Penguin - I wondered about the neat piles of belongings whilst the bodies and body parts lie unrecovered. And even touching anything, or standing on the wreckage, potentially destroys evidence and so is unacceptable. I can't help but feel it's Putin's power ( the gas) that is making everyone back off a real confrontation.

And Putin feeling horror?

I meant to type horror - yes Jingle - that's precisely the debate isn't it - ( not that everyone else would, that's not a real argument) but that we need to know what's going on and it would be wrong to censor photos that show that just because it would upset people. I feel torn about that debate - the photos of those little boys running from the missiles that eventually killed them, were very powerful and if it made a point about innocents being killed, it's a good argument in favour of them being published. I don't think it really matters what the feelings of the fighters were, my point isn't about that, it was about the ethics of publishing certain photos. I still remember the dreadful photo off the Browns driving away from hospital after their baby had died - their grief etched features plastered all over the front pages and IMO no justification for that at all. So there is a debate isn't there - I don't think we should just say it's ok for any photo to be published - there's more to it than that

I would like to think so too jingl but sadly I don't think they are feeling much horror. I don't know how many of the horror stories are true but there are stories of looting and stolen credit cards being used. I had wondered about the probability of looting after seeing the pictures of passports stacked up, handbags grouped together, open and empty, in a field. And to think of the bodies just left in situ, especially the babies and children, heart breaking. The picture with the child's toy is especially poignant. Surely the United Nations should be putting both sides under the upmost pressure to allow investigators in and the bodies to be retrieved? Perhaps they are but it's already been 2 days.

I think those rebels are possibly feeling a lot of horror at what they have done. Quite rightly. I hope Putin is feeling the same.

I can't agree that the photo should not have been published. We need to know what is going on. And it would be too much to expect our press to not print it when the rest of the world's press is doing so.

I (and Mini) didn't say a "sense of honour" by the way. We said "a sense of horror".

I'm glad you think so, too, Jing I do tend to live in fairyland and think the best of people when I probably shouldn't!

If there were any sense of honour they would be allowing the independent investigators in - but my point, which probably got lost, was that seeing that photo, regardless of motive of fighter, must/ could be beyond upsetting for someone who knows the child and would it have been better not to print it but just describe the action? Sorry if I wasn't clear

Yes Mini - a sense of horror. That's what I think.

No, I don't think it was triumph. I think it was probably in the very early stage of discovering what they had done - that it was a passenger plane. It does seem a strange thing to have done.

Just a thought, but . . . . . I wonder why he was holding the toy? Was it because of its poignancy? The sense of horror at what had happened? I can't bear to think of it as being any show of triumph.

Probably me being naive again here . . .

Maybe we should try to not think of that aspect too much. That way madness lies?

Yes. I cannot begin to imagine - do not want to imagine - what it would have been like if it were

sorry I can't even finish the post. Too horrible to imagine.