"Can you hear the shelling?", a journalist asks Brian McDonald, commander of the Australian Police Mission assisting with victim identification at the scene. "Well, it's not landing here so it's OK", he responds with bravado. "What do you do? We've got a job to do, so we'll get on." The optimism of his team is being pushed to the limit as the Ukrainian government ramps up its hot war against the pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country. In spite of promises of a ceasefire to allow investigations to proceed at the site - which lies on a strategically critical faultline between two rebel-held cities on the border with Russia - fierce shelling continues to inhibit the repatriation of bodies, and the collection of evidence. "It's terrible to see how the passengers' personal belongings from MH17 are spread out amongst the wreckage as far as the eye can see", says Rudy Bouma, a reporter for Dutch television. "I saw personal effects, 'I love Amsterdam' t-shirts, diaries, children's stuffed animals." Now, amid rhetoric of sanctions from Western leaders, questions are being raised about the world's dependency on Russian oil and gas. "We don't want to live in a world where the strong man decides what is happening."