U.S. intelligence officials have now confirmed that a Malaysia Airlines flight was shot down by a surface-to-air missile near the Ukraine-Russian border.
Flight MH17, en route to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam, was carrying 298 passengers when it crashed, after being shot down.
“It was not an accident, it was blown out of the sky, ” said U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, on Thursday afternoon.
From USA Today:
The crash site is in a region where tensions and fighting between Ukraine and pro-Russian militants has festered for months. Crash victims and body parts were strewn up to 10 miles away. News agencies reported 154 Dutch nationals were killed, along with 23 U.S. citizens, 27 Australians, 11 Indonesians, six Brits, four Germans, four Belgians, four French, three Filipinos and one Canadian. Crew members will from Malaysia.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called Thursday’s incident a terrorist act and ordered an investigation. Ukraine, pro-Russian separatists and Russia denied responsibility. But Ukrainian officials blamed Russian separatists controlling eastern Ukraine, saying they had intercepted telephone calls in which a separatist leader talked about the shoot down to Russian military intelligence officers. Separatists believed the aircraft was a military cargo plane, according to the SBU, Ukraine’s main security agency.
Read more here.
