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.
They claimed to have captured a BUK in June. They tweeted their victory. Whoops.
Proving once again that playing chess doesn’t automatically make you a genius.
I agree it was probably not Russian regulars. But when you put crazy militias in the field, you can get crazy results. I think this is on Putin.
Some western energy stocks are going up in net energy exporters.
Strelkov, aka Igor Vsevolodovich Girkin, is, according to an article by noted writer Bill Gertz, “is a GRU (Soviet military intelligence) colonel who was first identified by the Ukrainian SBU intelligence service. ...While in the Crimea, he was a military adviser to Sergei Asksenov, the current head of Russian-occupied Crimea.”
Bill Gertz, posted on FreeRepublic.com, June 20, 2014, “Ukrainian Rebel Commander Identified as Russia GRU Military Intelligence Colonel”, freebeacon.com, 6/20/14.
Strelkov, aka Igor Vsevolodovich Girkin, is, according to an article by noted writer Bill Gertz, “is a GRU (Soviet military intelligence) colonel who was first identified by the Ukrainian SBU intelligence service. ...While in the Crimea, he was a military adviser to Sergei Asksenov, the current head of Russian-occupied Crimea.”
Bill Gertz, posted on FreeRepublic.com, June 20, 2014, “Ukrainian Rebel Commander Identified as Russia GRU Military Intelligence Colonel”, freebeacon.com, 6/20/14.
04/23/2023 reminder
“tranquility” reminder
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