Police/Fire

MOSCOW (AP) — For Russian President Vladimir Putin, there are few options left in the Ukraine crisis and they all look bad.

He is caught between a determined West demanding that he disavow the pro-Russian insurgents in Ukraine and increasingly assertive nationalists at home urging him to champion the mutiny and send in the Russian army.

The Malaysian plane disaster this week triggered another round of U.S. and EU sanctions, which for the first time targeted entire sectors of the Russian economy, severely limiting Putin's room for maneuver. He may be eager to sever ties with the rebels, but he would need to find a way to do so that would allow him to save face — an exceedingly hard task amid growing Western pressure.

Bowing to Western demands would potentially spell political suicide for the Russian leader, who has built his popularity on standing up to the West. Under pressure, he may choose instead to escalate the crisis and risk an all-out confrontation.

Putin didn't plan for it to happen this way.

Last fall, he used a combination of pressure and subsidies to prevent Ukraine from signing an association agreement with the EU and lure it into a Moscow-led alliance. When mass protests chased the Russian-leaning Ukrainian president from power in February, Putin saw it as a Western plot against Russia and quickly moved to annex Ukraine's Black Sea peninsula of Crimea to head off what he said was the imminent threat of Ukraine joining NATO.

Putin then sought to maintain pressure on the West by fomenting a pro-Russian insurgency that flared up in Ukraine's mostly Russian-speaking industrial east in April, apparently hoping that a slow-burning conflict would help persuade the West to strike a compromise that would allow Russia to keep Ukraine in its orbit.

That strategy has failed. The West, especially Europe, long showed unwillingness to take a strong punitive stand against Putin. But the downing of the Malaysian passenger plane was the unforeseen event that overturned the dynamic, and compelled the West to act.

It appears that the Russian leader now is desperately looking for a way out from the crisis in hopes of containing the gravest threat to his rule to date. Here are some possible scenarios that may play out:

RUSSIA STRIKES COMPROMISE

From the start, Putin wanted to a deal with a West that would allow Russia to maintain its leverage over Ukraine, and he has steadily tempered his ambitions.

At the onset of the turmoil, Putin hoped that Ukraine would join a Russia-dominated economic alliance. When such hopes evaporated with the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych, Moscow began pushing for a "federalization" of Ukraine that would give broad powers to its provinces and allow them to deal directly with Moscow. Rebels later backed those demands by conducting independence referendums that both Ukraine and the West declared a sham.

The Kremlin then softened its rhetoric and started calling vaguely for a "dialogue" between the central government and the regions that would give the provinces a bigger say over local issues.

Now with his hand weakened by the plane disaster, Putin may be eager to accept any vague deal that would allow Moscow to maintain just a symbolic degree of influence. Such a deal, however, would have to involve concessions by both parties, something that is hard to achieve amid continuing fighting and growing distrust.

The West has demanded that the Kremlin disown the rebellion in eastern Ukraine. While Putin may despise the ragtag band of retired Russian officers and Moscow political consultants that have helped foment the mutiny, it would be hard for him to distance himself from them without denting his support base.

The Malaysian plane disaster, however, could offer a face-saving way of publicly condemning the rebel leadership. If an international investigation confirms that the missile that downed the plane on July 17 was launched by the rebels, Putin may say that Russia can't support those who were responsible for the tragic death of nearly 300 innocent people. Such a statement could pave the way for talks.

MORE SANCTIONS PROVOKE TOUGH RESPONSE

Putin possibly fears that any concessions would only lead to more Western pressure and may choose to remain defiant. If he keeps refusing to distance himself from the rebels, the West will remain reluctant to engage in any talks. Fighting in the east, which already involves heavy artillery and rockets pummeling residential areas, will raise the pressure on Putin to intervene militarily.

Putin is already facing scathing criticism in Russian nationalist publications and online forums for betraying Russian speakers in Ukraine by failing to send in the army.

At some point, fearing that the damage to his popularity could become irreparable, Putin may send more weapons to the rebels. More Western sanctions will not stop his hand, but rather may push him into a situation where any compromise would look like kowtowing to the West.

Pressed against the wall, Putin may even decide to send troops into Ukraine. They would likely crush the weak and disorganized Ukrainian military within days. The West would be unlikely to intervene militarily, but it would freeze virtually all ties with Moscow, sending the Russian economy into a tailspin. Living standards will plummet quickly, possibly spawning social unrest.

GROWING TURMOIL, UNPREDICTABLE CONSEQUENCES

Some in the West may hope that the sanctions will encourage members of the Russian elites as well as the broad public to demand a change of course.

However, the tightly controlled Russian political system leaves little room for dissent. Billionaire tycoons, some of whom have close personal links to Putin, stand to lose a lot from Western sanctions and would like Putin to soften his policy. But hopes that they may somehow persuade the president to pull out of confrontation seem futile, as the oligarchs are too scared to form any kind of united group, and official loyalties are closely controlled by Putin's fellow KGB veterans who dominate the officialdom.

Many in Washington expected Putin's businessmen friends who were hit by U.S. sanctions in March to push him toward de-escalation. The opposite has happened. Instead of encouraging a pro-Western opposition, more sanctions will likely further strengthen the Kremlin hawks, who may push Putin toward an even more confrontational and isolationist course.

In a sense, the Russian leader has become hostage to his own propaganda that has cast the West as an enemy of Russia.

Putin's approval ratings so far have remained high, but if the economy starts collapsing under the brunt of Western sanctions his popularity would dwindle quickly. It doesn't mean, though, that pro-Western democratic forces would have any chance to expand their presence on Russia's political scene.

Amid the war in Ukraine and Western sanctions, the weak and disorganized Russian liberals have become increasingly marginalized, while extreme nationalist forces have strengthened considerably.

Economic meltdown would further allow nationalist groups to expand their sway, and Russian volunteers now fighting in eastern Ukraine may become an explosive element in a changing political equation.

The prospect of potential unrest could re-ignite fears that accompanied the 1991 Soviet collapse. Thousands of nuclear warheads, smoldering conflicts between a myriad of ethnic groups, separatist movements and crumbling industrial infrastructure that could lead to technological disasters make any instability in Russia deadly dangerous for the rest of the world.

___

Isachenkov has covered Russia and other ex-Soviet nations for the AP since 1992.

ROZSYPNE, Ukraine (AP) — Two weeks after a missile brought down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, an international team of investigators Thursday reached a wreckage site in eastern Ukraine that remains bitterly contested between government forces and pro-Russia separatist rebels.

For the families of the victims, it was an important start in locating and recovering bodies still rotting in the fields and building a case against those who perpetrated the tragedy.

Harun Calehr, the uncle of two young victims of the disaster, said by phone from his home in the U.S. that he was happy investigators had reached the site. But Calehr said he remains concerned that dozens of bodies haven't been retrieved.

"It's been two weeks. I just hope they can get there now and do their job," Calehr said from Houston. "The only thing keeping me sane is being religious, hoping for something positive."

As the investigators — two apiece from the Netherlands and Australia — made an initial survey of the area shortly after lunchtime, mortar shells rained down on fields in a nearby village. Despite the lingering signs of risk, the team called their one-hour inspection a success.

For days, clashes along routes to the wreckage site had kept investigators from reaching the area to find and retrieve bodies that have been lying in open fields where midsummer temperatures have hovered around 90 F (32 C).

But after negotiations, the investigators were allowed through the final rebel checkpoint before the wreckage site at the village of Rozsypne by a rifle-toting militiaman who then fired a warning shot to prevent reporters from accompanying the convoy on Thursday afternoon.

The militiaman, who gave his name only as Sergei, said there was still fighting in Rozsypne as the Ukrainian army continues an offensive to take back swatches of territory from the rebels.

Australian Federal Police commander Brian McDonald said the visit was only a preliminary survey before more comprehensive recovery work.

"We had a quick inspection of the site. Today was more about an assessment of the site than it was of a search," said McDonald, who was in police uniform.

Up to 80 bodies are still at the site, said Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Corp. from Ukraine.

Ukrainian national security spokesman Andriy Lysenko said a "day of quiet" was declared Thursday in response to a call for a cease-fire from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

But Associated Press journalists near the wreckage site reported that clashes were still taking place in the immediate vicinity of where the Boeing 777 came down. Reporters who attempted to reach the area by another route were warned by residents that some nearby roads had been mined.

And AP reporters passing by Hrabove, another village around which fragments of the plane remain uncollected, saw one mortar shell fall on a spot about 150 meters (160 yards) from their car and heard two more hit nearby. It wasn't immediately clear who was responsible for the mortar fire or what the intended target was though Lysenko put the blame on rebels.

The 100-kilometer (60-mile) drive took the investigators and eight officials from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe from the rebel-held city of Donetsk through the town of Debaltseve, which was retaken earlier this week by the government, and later back into rebel territory.

Armored personnel carriers and light armored trucks bearing the blue-and-yellow Ukrainian national flag could be seen in and around Debaltseve and residents at one entrance to the town walked along a pontoon erected over the remains of a blown-up bridge.

The OSCE said on Twitter that the team observed a moment of silence upon reaching the scene in remembrance of the victims.

Alexander Hug, deputy head of an OSCE monitoring mission to Ukraine, called the visit a success because the delegation "managed to access the site without any incident."

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's office in a statement urged rebels to comply with a cease-fire spanning an area of 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) around the wreckage site.

The European Union and the U.S. have formed a united front in accusing Russia of fomenting unrest in eastern Ukraine by supplying weapons to rebels. Russia denies that accusation.

In Brussels, the EU formally adopted economic sanctions designed to pressure Russia to help bring about a peaceful solution to the Ukraine crisis. The measures will take effect Friday.

But back in Donetsk, the rebel's acting political leader, Vladimir Antyufeyev, denied that their movement was being assisted by Moscow.

"Neither I nor (rebel military commander Igor Girkin) knows or has met anybody from the Russian presidential administration," said Antyufeyev, a Russian national.

___

Associated Press writers David McHugh and Peter Leonard in Kiev, John-Thor Dahlburg in Brussels, Yuras Karmanau in Donetsk, and Toby Sterling in Amsterdam, contributed to this report.