Ukraine: No reason to close airspace before MH17

According to Olexander Horin, the Ukrainian ambassador in the Netherlands, his country had no reason to close the airspace above the conflict area before the disaster with flight MH17. "We did not know that the separatists had weapons with a range of ten kilometers altitude", he said in an interview with the Telegraaf on Thursday. He points out that the Ukraine had increased the flight limit for passenger aircraft to 9.7 kilometers just before the disaster. "Furthermore, everyone misjudged the situation by not linking the military conflict and the threat to civil aviation." In his country's defense, Horin points to the fact that the airspace over Syria and Iraq was closed only recently, after warnings of Russian cruise missiles. "But before that there was also war. Was the airspace closed for commercial flights then? No", the ambassador said to the newspaper. Horin endorses the Dutch Safety Board's conclusions in the MH17 report. He believes that new rules are need for flying over areas where a so-called hybrid war is underway. He would not comment on the question of who is responsible for the disaster, but he added that everyone knows who the guilty party is. "But we have to wait for the official investigation."