Senior Russian minister calls on Abbott to apologise over ‘shirt front’ vow

A SENIOR Russian politician has demanded an immediate apology from Tony Abbott about “shirt-fronting” Vladimir Putin.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who should receive an apology from Tony Abbott, according to a senior minister

A SENIOR Russian politician has demanded an immediate apology from Tony Abbott about “shirt-fronting” Vladimir Putin, claiming a recent German intelligence report absolves Russia of blame for the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.

As tensions build before the Brisbane G20 summit next month, the head of the Russian Duma’s Foreign Relations Committee, Aleksey Pushkov, said the Prime Minister looked “extremely exposed” for his attack on the Russian President.

German intelligence agency BND this week confirmed it had uncovered evidence that the BUK surface-to-air missile blamed for downing Malaysia Airlines MH17 was captured by pro-Russian separatists from a Ukrainian military base. BND chief Gerhard Schindler told Der Spiegel the missile that killed 298 people, including 38 Australians, was Ukrainian in origin, and had been captured and then fired by the pro-Russian separatists.

Mr Pushkov said the report showed Russia “had nothing to do” with the disaster and demanded Mr Abbott take back his threats. “The German intelligence report casts doubt on the main theory accepted in the West, the theory that has been voiced by a number of Western politicians and almost all Western mass media,” he said. “It suggested that it was Russia that allegedly supplied the Donetsk militia with the BUK surface-to-air missile used to down the Malaysian Boeing.

“The new theory means that Russia has nothing to do with the downed Boeing. And the Australian Prime Minister must take back his threats to attack Putin when he arrives in Australia for the G20 summit. The Australian politician looks extremely exposed in this situation as he started throwing accusations at Russia and almost charged the Russian President personally, without waiting for official results of the crash investigation.”