Emergencies Ministry members work at the site of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 plane crash in the settlement of Grabovo in the Donetsk region, July 17, 2014.
Russia asked Kiev on Thursday for permission to help with rescue work in eastern Ukraine after a Malaysian passenger airliner was brought down there, the Emergencies Ministry said.
"The Russian emergency services sent an official request to our Ukrainian colleagues to carry out joint work at the crash site of a Boeing (plane) on Ukrainian territory," Emergencies Minister Vladimir Puchkov told Russia's RIA news agency.
© Thomson Reuters 2014