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Can you talk a bit about the rebels who are suspected of being behind this? Igor Strelkov, for example, reportedly posted on social media Claiming Credit for shooting down a plane before it became clear that the plane was a civilian aircraft.
He posted on his VKontakte site — that’s the Russian version of Facebook —
around the time that the plane came down a slightly boastful post that “We’ve a Ukrainian transport plane.”
It’s also worth pointing out that this isn’t the first time they’ve shot a plane out of the sky. In the past few weeks,
they’ve shot down a Ukrainian transport plane, a fighter jet and a helicopter. So we know that they have this kind of surface-to-air missiles. So, he posted it, tweeted about it, and people picked up on it.
Later in the evening, they deleted the post, and gave all kinds of contradictory explanations. They said, “We don’t even have that kind of weaponry that can hit something at that altitude.”
Today, Strelkov came out and said that looking at the wreckage some of these bodies were badly decomposed, and had been dead for a long time — implying that this is some weird false-flag maneuver to try and draw in international forces. …
The interesting thing is they apparently thought it was a Ukrainian transport plane. The intercepts of phone conversations that the Ukrainian government released are Chilling.
Intercepted Audio of Ukraine Separatists - Video - NYTimes.com
You hear how it went from initially one of the rebels calling the Russian supervisor and feeling sort of happy that they’ve achieved this military coup of getting another Ukrainian plane.
Next call, you hear a little bit more doubt about what’s happened. By the third phone call, there’s no doubt in his mind that the passenger plane has nothing to do with the war.
You get the sense it’s starting to dawn on them how big a deal this is, that the repercussions are going to be pretty huge.
Having met some of the separatists when you were in Ukraine this spring, are you surprised by their military capabilities? How would they have gotten the weapons to shoot down the Malaysian Air flight, as well as the cargo plane that was shot down earlier this week?
When I was there, it was fairly early on in the uprising. The guys who were fighting in the east — it was a mixture. There were some Russians, but there were some locals. For the most part,
the weapons they had were rusty, old Kalashnikovs. They had a few rocket launchers, a few heavier bits of kit, but Not anything cutting edge that could shoot a plane out of the sky.
It’s a sign that since I left in May,
more well-qualified, well-trained soldiers — or “volunteers” as they’ve been called — have come across the border with serious heavy weaponry: tanks, surface-to-air missiles, kit that’s meant to fight a proper war, not just a few ground skirmishes.
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Would say 98%! But it is hardly the only conflict where this crap goes on.