A UKRAINIAN rebel leader has confirmed that pro-Russian separatists had an anti-aircraft missile of the type the U.S. Government said was used to shoot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 and it could have originated in Russia.
In an interview with Reuters, Alexander Khodakovsky, commander of the Vostok Battalion, acknowledged for the first time since the airliner was brought down in eastern Ukraine on July 17 that the rebels did possess the BUK missile system and said it could have been sent back subsequently to remove proof of its presence.
Before the MH17 was shot down, rebels had boasted of obtaining the BUK missiles, which can shoot down airliners at cruising height. But since the disaster the separatists’ main group, the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Donetsk, has repeatedly denied ever having possessed such weapons.
Khodakovsky accused the Kiev authorities for provoking what may have been the missile strike that destroyed the doomed airliner, saying Kiev had deliberately launched air strikes in the area, knowing the missiles were in place.
“I knew that a BUK came from Luhansk. At the time I was told that a BUK from Luhansk was coming under the flag of the LNR,” he said, referring to the Luhansk People’s Republic, one of two rebel provinces along with Donetsk, the province where the crash took place.
“The question is this: Ukraine received timely evidence that the volunteers have this technology. It not only did nothing to protect security, but provoked the use of this type of weapon against a plane that was flying with peaceful civilians,” he said.
Washington believes that pro-Russian separatists most likely shot down the airliner “by mistake,” not realizing it was a civilian passenger flight, U.S. intelligence officials said.
Separately, Kiev said two of its fighter jets were shot down over the rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, and the missiles that brought them down might have been fired from Russia. (SD-Agencies)
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