Response to air tragedy ‘is Russia’s defining moment’

In a statement to the House of Commons yesterday, Mr Cameron said Russia was facing a “defining moment” and warned that Europe would fundamentally change its relations with its giant eastern neighbour if Mr Putin continued to foment violence and instability in Ukraine.

The Prime Minister dismissed Mr Putin’s denial of responsibility for the crash as “bluster and obfuscation” and told him to use his influence over the pro-Russian separatists to ensure access to the crash site for international experts seeking to repatriate the bodies of the 298 victims and investigate the cause of the tragedy.

Rejecting claims that Ukraine’s armed forces may have fired the surface-to-air missile which downed the Malaysian jet at 33,000 feet, Mr Cameron told MPs: “The picture is becoming clearer and the weight of the evidence is pointing in one direction. MH17 was shot down by an SA-11 missile fired by separatists.”

Giving his condolences to the friends and families of those who died, including 10 Britons, the PM - wearing a black tie - said: “Alongside sympathy for the victims, there is also anger.

“There is anger that this could happen at all, there is anger that the murder of innocent men, women and children has been compounded by sickening reports of looting of victims’ possessions and interference with the evidence and there is rightly anger that a conflict that could have been curtailed by Moscow has instead been fomented by Moscow.”

As well as using his influence on the separatists to ensure access to the crash site, Mr Cameron said Mr Putin “must use his influence to end the conflict in Ukraine by halting supplies and training for the separatists”.

And he added: “We must establish proper long-term relationships between Ukraine and Russia, Ukraine and the EU and above all between Russia and the EU, Nato and the wider West”.

UK air crash investigators have now started their work assisting the probe into the MH17 disaster.

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond will today meet EU counterparts in Brussels at a meeting in which the UK hopes extended sanctions on specific Russian businesses, organisations and individuals, due to come into force by the end of the month, will be brought forward for immediate implementation.

He and other EU foreign ministers will have an opportunity to talk to representatives of the Malaysian Government at a meeting with the Asean economic bloc in Brussels tomorrow.

The UK also wants discussion tomorrow on potential “Tier 3” sanctions on wider sectors of the Russian economy, which could cover areas such as financial services, trade and defence co-operation and energy exports.

French arms sales and German dependence on Russian fossil fuels have been seen as possible barriers to tougher measures, but Britain will argue that the whole union must share the burden.

Meanwhile, an online charity fundraising appeal set up by University of Leeds student Richard Mayne has continued to attract thousands of pounds of donations in his memory after he died on flight MH17.

Mr Mayne, 20, set up the JustGiving page six months ago to raise funds for the Kidasha charity, which helps disadvantaged children in Nepal.

And yesterday football supporters held a minute’s applause for the two Newcastle United fans killed in the atrocity.