Nine News Reporter Damian Ryan and his crew are forced to turn around near the MH17 crash site after...

1. Channel Nine reporter was held at gunpoint by rebels, had a
machine gun pointed at his head
Nine News Reporter Damian Ryan and his crew are forced to turn around near the MH17 crash site
after a rebel approached their gun pointing a rifle. Courtesy Channel Nine.
CHANNEL NINE reporter Damian Ryan had a machine gun pointed at him in a tense and terrifying
encounter with a pro-Russian rebel in Ukraine overnight.
The veteran correspondent was travelling in a vehicle with his crew when they were stopped at
gunpoint by "a very erratic young separatist rebel soldier", it has been revealed.
"He raised his AK47 and cocked it at our heads, thinking we were Ukraine forces," Ryan said in a
post on Nine's website.
"There was screaming between both parties before he realised we were media, telling us to get out
of the area as it was under attack.
There's a war going on ... a convoy of Ukrainian forces pass a local residents as they drive towards
the eastern city of Debaltceve. Picture: Genvya Savilov
"It was obvious that his dug-in position on the side of the road had just been shelled. Trees had been
shredded and branches were everywhere."
The bewildered reporter and his entourage fled in their vehicle, he said.
Ryan and his travelling party were about one kilometre from the MH17 ground zero crash zone
when they were stopped.
Meanwhile, a small, unarmed reconnaissance team of international observers, including two
Australians, finally made it to the crash site overnight after departing from Donetsk early in the
Ukraine morning.
The situation around the crash site remained perilous despite a small team managing to access the
scene.

2. Scary situation ... veteran Channel Nine reporter Damian Ryan had a machine gun pointed at him in
a terrifying encounter with a pro-Russian rebel. Source: Supplied
An AFP team following the convoy heard loud blasts just a few kilometres away from the site and
saw black smoke rising from a village close to where some of the plane wreckage is lying.
According to the ABC, the scouting team took more than six hours to get through to the crash zone
through different battle zones.
Fighting continued around the area. Reporters saw fields around the site - containing debris and
potentially bodies - alight.
Australia has won approval to send elite armed officers to protect investigative teams in their efforts
to scour the Malaysia Airlines crash site for human remains after the recalled Ukrainian parliament
passed special legislation.
International monitor Alexander Hug and other officials read a map with a separatist rebel in
Donetsk. Source: AFP
Announcing that cadaver sniffer dogs had also been permitted to join the recovery mission, Foreign
Minister Julie Bishop tweeted from Kiev: "Ukraine Rada votes #MH17 Netherlands-Australia
investigation 324 in favour. Thank you Ukraine."
According to translations of the special Ukrainian agreement, the Australian force will include "no
more than 250 armed men" who are not part of Australia's armed forces and whose task is to ensure
the protection of the crash sites.
"Australian personnel are allowed to have and bear arms, as well as the use of force within the
required activities to achieve the objectives (of the mission), including the use of deadly force in self-
defence," ran one translation of the agreement.
A small, unarmed reconnaissance team of international observers, including two Australians, finally
made it to the crash site overnight after departing from Donetsk early in the Ukraine morning.
Dutch police said the situation around the crash site remained perilous despite a small team
managing to access the scene.
According to the ABC, the scouting team took more than six hours to get through to the crash zone
through different battle zones.
Fighting continued around the area. Reporters saw fields around the site - contatining debris and
potentially bodies - alight during the fighting.
"The security situation is still very unstable," Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, head of the mission to
repatriate the remains of the victims, told journalists in Kiev.
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE, which spent more than six hours
trying to forge a safe route, tweeted that the site had been reached for the first time in almost a
week by taking a new route.
The Dutch government leading the mission confirmed the team had arrived, stating: "The team will

3. carry out further studies on the spot. At present it is only an exploration."
Access denied ... a convoy of the OSCE mission set off, pictured on July 30. Picture: Dmitry Lovetsky
Source: AP
It comes amid wire reports that Ukraine's military has announced a daylong ceasefire in its assault
on pro-Russian rebels near the crash site, after the United Nations issued a plea to let investigators
to the area where wreckage and bodies from MH17 still lie unrecovered.
However, in the rebel-held city of Donetsk the truce does not appear to have kicked in, with loud
bombing being heard from the city outskirts and intense fighting continuing in the area of the crash.
Devastation in Donetsk ... a man and his dog inspect an area that had been shelled on July 29.
Picture: Bulent Kilic Source: AFP
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The area is now the scene of several pitched battles between Ukrainian forces and separatists,
whom Ms Bishop believes are being reinforced by heavy armaments and veteran fighters crossing
from Russia and surrounding republics.
"My great fear is Russia is actively undermining this process," Ms Bishop said from Kiev.
Ukraine has said it did not intend to bomb civilian areas of Donetsk but missiles have been incoming,
many of them fired in wildly inaccurate barrages that international observers says are being fired
from truck-mounted Grad missile systems and cannons.
The outskirts of Donetsk, where the foreign teams are headquartered, were last night rocked by
sustained barrages, believed to have been fired inwards by Ukrainian troops who have ringed the
city.
Claims of landmines ... Andriy Lysenko, Ukrainian National Security and Defence Council
spokesman. Picture: Ella Pellegrini Source: News Corp Australia
Today, it appeared that separatists are firing back out of the city.
Those people who have not fled the southwest part of the city slept on floors and prayed.
"I did not sleep," said a contact named Anton, a shop owner who described the bombing as very
close to his home.
Investigators have been unable to secure the crash area as their urgent mission to retrieve the
remains of up to 80 people falls foul of bitter internal war that escalated after the plane came down
on July 17, killing all 298 passengers and crew.
The resolution to allow elite Australian Federal Police officers to carry arms on sorties to the site is
to protect and if necessary extract investigators if they are caught in crossfire.

4. As Prime Minister Tony Abbott declared August 7 a national day of mourning for the 38 Australian
citizens and residents on the plane, Operation Bring Them Home still remains fraught.
Claims by Ukrainian military spokesman Colonel Andriy Lysenko that separatists had placed
landmines on road approaches to the crash site are not necessarily seen as credible, but it has
managed to further complicate the issue.
Australia has said it will not risk its citizens' lives.
There will be a full assessment by the team from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in
Europe, or OSCE, which is working with the separatists on accessing the site, whether there is any
truth to Colonel Lysenko's claim that getting to the site was now "impossible" because of landmines.
Strong support ... Foreign Minister Julie Bishop (r) meets former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia
Tymoshenko in Kiev on July 30. Picture: Olexander Prokopenko Source: AP
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