Australia's push to secure the MH17 crash site in rebel-held eastern Ukraine would be a police-led operation, not a military one, the prime minister's special envoy Angus Houston says.
A team of 230, comprising 190 federal police and Defence personnel, including medical specialists, are either in Ukraine or on the way, awaiting permission from that country's parliament to enter the site.
The involvement of defence personnel has been criticised by some, with one unnamed senior defence source telling Fairfax newspapers the operation should be a civilian one.
Analyst Joerg Forbrig from the Berlin bureau of the German Marshall Fund of the United States said the plan to bring in troops had no merit.
''They must be nuts. It's a very dangerous proposal and will be seen as a provocation by the separatists and the Russians," he told Fairfax Media.
Mr Houston on Sunday described attempts to secure the site and retrieve the remaining bodies from the Malaysia Airlines plane that crashed more than a week ago, killing 298, as a humanitarian operation.
While there had been some military involvement, the mission would be led by police, he said.
"We'll be going in with ... primarily police and civilians, not military personnel," Mr Houston told ABC television.
"I think it is going to be very important to posture a non-aggressive, non-threatening force so that nobody will interfere with it."
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