The Washington Post has a source who says, yes, a missile brought that civilian airplane down.
Obama said U.S. national security officials are in close contact with the Ukrainian government. “The United States will offer any assistance we can to help determine what happened and why,” he said. Vice President Biden called Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to extend that offer, the White House said.
Hours later, a U.S. official said American intelligence agencies had confirmed that the plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile. The official, who was not authorized to speak on the record about an early intelligence assessment, said government analysts were scrambling to determine who fired the missile.
“This is a contested area,” the official said. “It’s going to take time to get some information on the intentions of whoever was involved.”
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Rebel leaders in eastern Ukraine denied possessing the Buk missile launcher, but journalists reported seeing a similar weapon in the region earlier Thursday.
The rebels began bragging about capturing Buk missiles around June 29. Russian-controlled media reported that the rebels had “captured” Buk missiles this week, in what looks like a cover story designed to protect Russian from any culpability for what the rebels do with those missiles.
So that cat is out of the bag. The rebels have the missiles. But who trained them how to use them? When? Where?
photo credit Loskutnikov / Shutterstock.com
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