The phone rings next to Angus Houston's bed. It's 4am in Kyiv where the former Australian Defence Force chief is staying. At the end of the line is then-prime minister Tony Abbott.
Abbott wants to discuss the option of sending "a large military deployment" to Ukraine in response to the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 by Russia-backed separatists.
It's not an option some in Abbott's cabinet even want to entertain.
"It was a genuinely crazy idea," says Malcolm Turnbull, who was then communications minister, in an interview with the ABC political docuseries Nemesis.
"To send armed personnel … no-one would've welcomed it, and particularly our Western allies would not have welcomed it.
"It showed, if you like, the elements of Tony that started to make me feel that we had a very dangerous prime minister."
Abbott activated 'war cabinet' approach
It's July 2014, and Angus Houston is Australia's special envoy to Ukraine, appointed by Abbott to recover, identify and repatriate the remains of Australians killed in the tragedy.
Thirty-eight Australian citizens and residents were among the 298 onboard MH17 when it was hit by a Russian-supplied surface-to-air missile over eastern Ukraine. All were killed.
"[Tony Abbott] was very determined to do whatever was needed to basically recover the remains of the Australians and repatriate them to their loved ones, and he had a great concern for the welfare of the families," Houston says.
Abbott is determined to get Australian personnel to the site of the wreckage, despite the fact it is in dangerous territory controlled by the separatists.
Like many Australians, the prime minister is outraged by this unprovoked and senseless killing.
On the phone to Houston in Kyiv, he goes through the options of how to respond and make sure remains are recovered.
Loading..."The two options that were under consideration were a police-led operation, which I strongly supported, and a military option," Houston says.
"I was concerned that the military option would be provocative because the crash site was only a short distance from the Russian border and already I was aware of a huge build-up of Russian forces on the border adjacent to the crash site."
Months earlier, Russia had invaded and annexed the Crimean Peninsula in a precursor to its full-scale 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Russia-backed separatists had seized Ukrainian government buildings in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, declaring the Donetsk and Luhansk republics as independent states, sparking a war with Kyiv.
It was from this region that the separatists launched the missile that brought down MH17.
"In the early days, we didn't know whether [the shooting down of MH17] was an isolated incident or whether it was indeed the beginning of some major assault," recalls then-deputy prime minister Warren Truss.
"[Abbott] really activated a war cabinet-style of approach … Australia certainly prepared for this whole incident to escalate.
"A prime minister is absolutely right to ask, what are all the options? What can and can't we do?" says then-cabinet minister Eric Abetz.
"And for the Australian bodies strewn on the ground, we as a government had a duty to consider and look at every opportunity and possibility to deal with that."
But Abetz's fellow cabinet minister Malcolm Turnbull believes putting Australian troops on the ground in Ukraine would have been crazy and dangerous.
"If we had sent armed personnel into that part of Ukraine, it's quite clear what would've happened," Turnbull says.
"Putin would've … captured them and we would probably still be trying to negotiate for their return."
'I just didn't think it was worth the risk'
In the pre-dawn of Kyiv, Houston listens to the prime minister run through the options of a police-led operation and a military deployment.
"It was going to be quite a large military deployment, and I just didn't think a large military deployment would cut it in those circumstances with a very large force on the other side of the border only 30 kilometres away. I just didn't think that was a smart way to go," Houston says.
"The risk factor would've gone up substantially in terms of a miscalculation, a misunderstanding, the possibility of somebody inadvertently firing on our guys and the thing escalating from there. I just didn't think it was worth the risk."
The prime minister wants to know what the former defence chief believes is the best option.
"My advice when we had the chat was, I said to him that I thought that the police-led option was really the only way to go because it would be more acceptable in terms of less provocative," he says.
"We had what I would call a very sensible discussion about all the factors at play. I gave him my views. I mean, it was advice, and at the end of it all, he said, 'OK Angus, I accept your advice. It'll be a police-led option.'"
Former deputy prime minister Warren Truss says Abbott displayed true leadership in a fast-moving and tragic situation.
"There is danger in going to war and no-one wants to do that. But it was also prudent to be planning about what would happen if in the event this whole incident escalated, which was considered to be very likely at the time."
Abbott was widely praised for his leadership in response to the MH17 disaster, with Houston among those who believe the prime minister showed compassion, courage and calm.
"I think he did a great job.
"The way the nation came together under Tony Abbott's leadership to support the families I think was one of the best things I've seen in my life."
Abbott later made global headlines when he threatened to "shirtfront" Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 leaders meeting in Brisbane in November 2014.
"Saying you're going to shirtfront the president of Russia does sound a little childish, really," Turnbull says.
"It's not the language that people expect prime ministers and presidents to be saying but I think it played to his strengths of being strong and muscular and all of that."
"I think he'd give Putin a good fight for his money," Warren Truss says.
Watch the first episode of the ABC's three-part political docuseries Nemesis now on ABC iview.
Tony Abbott declined to be interviewed for the documentary series.