Reuters, Ukraine :
World leaders demanded an international investigation into the shooting down of a Malaysian airliner with 298 people on board over eastern Ukraine in a tragedy that could mark a pivotal moment in the worst crisis between Russia and the West since the Cold War.
As Ukraine sought to rally international support against Russia, two U.S. officials said Washington strongly suspected the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 was downed by a missile fired by Ukrainian separatists backed by Moscow.
There were no survivors from Thursday’s crash, the deadliest such attack on a commercial airliner, which scattered wreckage and bodies across miles of rebel-held territory near the border with Russia.
Makeshift white flags marked where bodies lay in corn fields and among the debris. Others, stripped bare by the force of the crash, had been covered by polythene sheeting weighed down by stones, one marked with a flower in remembrance.
One woman told how a corpse smashed though the roof of her house. “There was a howling noise and everything started to rattle. Then objects started falling out of the sky,” said Irina Tipunova, 65. “And then I heard a roar and she landed in the kitchen.”
The scale of the disaster could prove a turning point for international pressure to resolve the crisis in Ukraine, which has killed hundreds since pro-Western protests toppled the Moscow-backed president in Kiev in February and Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula a month later.
While the West has imposed sanctions on Russia over Ukraine, the United States has been more aggressive than the European Union. Analysts say the response of Germany and other EU powers to the incident – possibly imposing more sanctions – could be crucial in deciding the next phase of the standoff with Moscow. Some commentators even recalled Germany’s sinking of the civilian liner Lusitania in 1915, which helped push the United States into World War I, but outrage in the West at Thursday’s tragedy is not seen as leading to military intervention. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in an initial response, said it was too early to decide on further sanctions before it was known exactly what had happened to the plane.
Britain said the facts needed to be established by an international, UN-led investigation before additional sanctions were seriously considered.
Kiev and Moscow immediately blamed each other for the disaster, triggering a new phase in their propaganda war.
The plane crashed about 40 km (25 miles) from the border with Russia near the regional capital of Donetsk, an area that is a stronghold of rebels who have been fighting Ukrainian government forces and have brought down military aircraft.
A number of those on board were travelling to an international AIDS conference in Melbourne, including Joep Lange, an influential Dutch expert.
The loss of MH17 is the second devastating blow for Malaysia Airlines this year, following the mysterious disappearance of Flight MH370 in March, which vanished with 239 passengers and crew on board on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
In Malaysia, there was a sense of disbelief that another airline disaster could strike so soon. “This is a tragic day, in what has already been a tragic year, for Malaysia,” Prime Minister Najib Razak said.
