A Malaysian passenger airliner with 295 people on board was shot down over Ukraine on Thursday.
The aircraft was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur and came down near the city of Donetsk where separatist rebels are battling Ukrainian troops.
“A civilian airliner traveling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur has just been shot down by a Buk anti-aircraft system,” Anton Gerashchenko of the Ukrainian interior ministry told Reuters.
The Associated Press reported seeing similar launcher near the eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne. The Buk missile system can reportedly fire missiles up to an altitude of 72,000 feet.
The incident follows a separatist claim they hit two Sukhoi-25 jets on Wednesday. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said the second jet was hit by a portable surface-to-air missile.
The Ukrainian regime will undoubtedly use the incident to bolster its claim separatists fighting for independence from the State Department installed government in Kyiv are terrorists supported and encouraged by Russia.
Update
Separatist rebels have denied shooting down the Malaysia Airlines passenger plane.
From the AP:
Andrei Purgin, deputy prime minister for the rebels, told The Associated Press the plane must have been shot down by Ukrainian government troops. He gave no proof for his statement, and Ukraine earlier denied shooting at any airborne targets.
The last known location of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17: http://t.co/xII6jvegHd pic.twitter.com/ntPGglJkPS
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) July 17, 2014
Wall Street dropped to session lows on reports of passenger jet carrying >200 people crashed over Ukraine http://t.co/Qud28YLJHX @adamsamson
— Victoria Craig (@VictoriaCraig) July 17, 2014
Another photo. RT @MatevzNovak: Flight #MH-17 #Torez #Donetsk #Ukraine by Nadezhda Chernetskaya pic.twitter.com/3KwYpICTwO
— Jason DeRusha (@DeRushaJ) July 17, 2014
MT @MatevzNovak
#MH-17 #Torez #Donetsk #Ukraine by Nadezhda Chernetskaya pic.twitter.com/f2fCs3KrJ6
— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) July 17, 2014
WARNING GRAPHIC PHOTO: Scene of Malaysia #MH17 plane crash in E. #Ukraine http://t.co/cOfyUnXeky pic.twitter.com/7wKF1TroVY
— RT (@RT_com) July 17, 2014
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