The Dutch government is ‘seriously considering’ sending a group of soldiers or police officers to Ukraine to secure the MH17 crash site, the Volkskrant reports on Wednesday quoting ‘sources in the Netherlands’.

One condition of the exercise would be that the group ‘operates in an international coalition, consisting of security officials from different countries affected by the disaster’, the paper says.

Support for the plan, which the paper describes as ‘in the early phases’, is now being sought in The Hague and from other world leaders. The Ukrainian media also published details of the plan on Wednesday morning.

Wreckage

The soldiers and police officers would be charged with making sure that wreckage from the Boeing 777 is not disturbed until accident investigators have monitored it and the last of the 298 victims are removed from the site.

The state information service RVD has not confirmed or denied the report. ‘The Netherlands is in talks with many partners to ensure the victims are brought back and to get to the bottom of what happened,’ the RVD said in a statement.

‘The talks include the speedy and safe implementation of UN resolution 2166. Various options are being worked on to achieve this.’

Wreckage from the plane is spread over 35 square kilometres and not all the bodies have yet been found. The disaster site has no security and there are widespread reports of looting of the victims possessions.