Posted on 07/17/2014 10:15:00 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Shortly before reports surfaced that a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 had crashed in eastern Ukraine, a separatist leader boasted on social media that his men had shot down an aircraft.
In a post on his VKontakte page, Russia's largest social media site, separatist leader Igor Girkin, aka Strelkov, wrote: "In the vicinity of Torez, we just downed a plane, an AN-26. It is lying somewhere in the Progress Mine. We have issued warnings not to fly in our airspace. We have video confirming. The bird fell on a waste heap. Residential areas were not hit. Civilians were not injured."
The AN-26 is a Soviet-built twin-engine transport plane used by the Ukrainian military. Torez is a small city of 80,000 located some 40 kilometers east of Donetsk. Included in the post were two videos that showed a rising plume of black smoke in the distance.
The claim was posted at 5:50 pm Moscow time, shortly before reports surfaced that the Malaysian civilian aircraft, on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, had crashed in eastern Ukraine in the same area near the Russian border.
A Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser, Anton Herashchenko, claimed the plane had been shot down by a ground-to-air missile.
Andrei Purgin, the self-styled first vice premier of the unrecognized Donetsk People's Republic, told Interfax the separatists do not have weapons that could shoot down a plane flying at an altitude of 10,000 meters.
Both Ukrainian and Russian authorities have denied shooting down the Malaysian passenger aircraft.
One of Putin’s boys....
I think he just stepped in it big time!
This could only be done with Russian equipment.
A Ukraine separatist is the same as a Russian communist in my book. Only they would have no problem (technical or moral) bringing down a passenger airliner.
Well we have a name to attach to the arrest warrant for murder.
>> his men had shot down an aircraft.
I’m guessing the type of aircraft wasn’t important to this idiot.
The Palestinians will be shopping for some of those Russian “ground-to-air” missiles.
What better sales propaganda than a Russian missile shooting down a passenger plane?
Ukraine Separatist Leader Boasts Of Downing Plane
Yes they’ve shot down quite a few. All military so far.
A 777 looks nothing like an AN-26...that’s like comparing a B-52 to a C-130
Or perhaps Strelkov will be ‘recalled’ to Moscow for ‘urgent consultations’ - along with the rest of those assclown separatists - and simply never be heard from ever again.
Classic, old-school tactics, and as we all know, there’s no school like the old-school.
This may be too much, even for Putin. And perhaps he’ll wash his hands of the whole affair, and in Russia, that kind of hand-washing is usually done with a bullet to the back of the neck.
Damn rookie militants!!
Emergencies Ministry members work at the site of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 plane crash in the settlement of Grabovo in the Donetsk region, July 17, 2014.
The Malaysian airliner was shot down over eastern Ukraine by pro-Russian militants on Thursday, killing all 295 people aboard, a Ukrainian interior ministry official said.
(REUTERS/Maxim Zmeyev)
It was apparently shot down by a Buk SAM system. Both the Ukraine and the Russians have these, not sure about the separatists, but it’s certainly plausible.
The plane was traveling west-to-east, so I doubt the Russian army would mistake it for a military transport, their radar had plenty of time to pick it up and ID it. That leaves the separatists and the Ukranians as possible perps.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buk_missile_system
>A 777 looks nothing like an AN-26...that’s like comparing a B-52 to a C-130<
It’s difficult to see the props at 33,000 feet. These clowns were shooting at anything in the sky.
CC
What you will easily tell, is the altitude difference... 33,000 looks nothing like 26,000 ft. on radar!
Oopsky. Good find.
Wait... west-to-east! It didn’t enter Russian airspace yet, got it backwards!
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