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Brandon Turbeville

The flight was allegedly downed by a missile.

According to USA Today “Anton Gerashenko, the adviser, says on his Facebook page the plane was flying at an altitude of 33,000 feet when it was hit Thursday by a missile fired from a BUK launcher, the Associated Press reports.”

AP Journalists are claiming to have seen a similar style missile in the eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne on Thursday.

USA TODAY describes the BUK missile system, also known as the SA-17 GRIZZLY as “a mobile anti-aircraft system mounted usually on a tracked vehicle or truck that can simultaneously track and strike six targets flying from different directions and at different altitudes.”

Yet while the Western press is wasting no time to suggest that the plane was shot down either by Ukrainian separatists backed by Russia or even Russia itself, both the separatist leaders and the Russian government have denied any involvement in the downing of the plane.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has also denied shooting down the plane.

It is not yet decidedly clear which forces would have actually had control over such types of missile launchers as the BUK system since the territory from where the missiles were allegedly launched are an active battlefield between Kiev fascists supported by NATO and Ukranian separatists who are receiving support from Russia.

The Donetsk regional separatist government stated that the plane crashed near the village of Grabovo, a separatist controlled area. However, the fact that the plane crashed near Grabovo does not indicate blame as to who fired missiles or if any missiles were indeed fired.

Separatists deny that their forces even have the capability to shoot down the Malaysian flight at the altitudes specified. Separatists are labeling the incident a “provocation by the Ukrainian military,” according to USA Today and the Russian Interfax news agency.

Alexander Boroday, Chairman of the Council of Ministers in the Republic of Donetsk stated that “Self-defense forces have no air-defense which could target transport aircraft at that height.”

Russian’s military also claims that none of its military planes have flown close to the Russian-Ukrainian borderon Thursday according to a report citing an unidentified military official by RIA Novosti.

Indeed, there is little evidence to suggest that the Ukrainian separatists have such missile launching capabilities. There has been no indication that separatists have seized this type of sophisticated military weaponry or that Russian has provided it to them.

However, there is evidence pointing toward the location of such missile launching systems in Ukraine.
According to ITAR-TASS, a Russian news agency, Ukraine’s armed forces actually moved the BUK anti-aircraft missile delivery system battalion to the area around the city of Donetsk on Wednesday. The source quoted by ITAR-TASS suggests that another battalion of the BUK missile launching system is being moved to the area of Kharkov, a city in East Ukraine but northwest of Donetsk.

The source also stated that a plane could only be shot down at 10,000 meters by a system that is at least as sophisticated as the BUK or S-300 missile systems.

The report states,

Ukraine’s armed forces dispatched the Buk anti-aircraft missile system battalion to the area of the city of Donetsk on Wednesday, a well-informed source said referring to the data recording system.

Another battalion of the same weapons is said to be in the process of embarkation in the city of Kharkiv, northwest of Donetsk, the source said adding that the aircraft at an altitude of over 10,000 meters could be shot down only with the weapons of the S-300 or Buk (Beech) missile systems.

Indeed, the BUK system, which requires transportation and mounting on a tracked vehicle or large truck, is not likely to be in the hands of rebels surviving on Russian small arms and other basic forms of military and tactical aid. BUK is much more the type of system that would be property of a national government.

This incident comes only a day after claims by the Ukrainian military that Russia shot down a Ukrainian jet fighter over Ukranian territory. 

It also comes only days after the Western media seized on reports suggesting that the Russian government was considering targeted strikes inside Ukraine in order to protect the Ukrainian people, ethnic Russians, and Russian interests.