Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott met with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss downed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17.
This is what real leadership looks like.
Abbott told Putin to apologize and stop trying to restore the lost glories of tsarism and the old Soviet Union.”
What a stud.
Australian officials have intelligence that the plane was shot down by separatists using a Russian missile supplied by Moscow.
The Age reported:
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has revealed he told President Vladimir Putin to stop trying to restore the “lost glories of tsarism and the old Soviet Union”.
Mr Abbott held discussions with Mr Putin on the sidelines of the APEC meeting in Beijing on Tuesday. His earlier threat to “shirt-front” the Russian leader was swapped with a call for an apology and compensation for the victims of the downed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17.
Speaking at a joint media conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron in Canberra on Friday, Mr Abbott revealed he also issued some blunt advice to the Russian leader.
“One of the points I tried to make to Putin is that Russia would be so much more attractive if it was aspiring to be a superpower for peace and freedom and prosperity; if it were trying to be a superpower for ideas and values instead of trying to recreate the lost glories of tsarism or the old Soviet Union,” Mr Abbott said.
The Prime Minister said he never imagined he would be dealing with Russian aggression in an Australian context 12 months ago, before Flight MH17 was shot down in July.
Australia holds Moscow partly responsible for the atrocity that killed 38 people who called Australia home. It believes Russian-backed separatists used a missile supplied by Moscow to shoot down the plane over eastern Ukraine.
“There is a heavy responsibility on Russia to come clean and atone,” Mr Abbott said, adding that Moscow’s bullying of Kiev was part of a “regrettable pattern” that included the stationing of a naval fleet in the South Pacific while Mr Putin attends the G20 in Brisbane.
