Rebels acknowledge having BUK missile

Russia calls on US to prove fire from rebel-held territory downed aircraft

A powerful Ukrainian rebel leader has confirmed that rebels had an anti-aircraft missile of the type Washington said was used to shoot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 and it could have originated in Russia.

In an interview with Reuters, Alexander Khodakovsky, commander of the Vostok Battalion, acknowledged for the first time since the airliner was brought down in eastern Ukraine on July 17 that the rebels did possess the BUK missile system and said it could have been sent back subsequently to remove proof of its presence.

Before the plane was shot down, rebels had boasted of obtaining the BUK missiles, which can shoot down airliners at cruising height. But since the disaster, the separatists' main group, the self-proclaimed People's Republic of Donetsk, has repeatedly denied ever having possessed such weapons.

Since the airliner crashed with the loss of all 298 on board, the most contentious issue has been who fired the missile that brought the jet down in an area where government forces are fighting rebels.

Khodakovsky accused the Kiev authorities of provoking what may have been the missile strike that destroyed the airliner, saying Kiev had deliberately launched airstrikes in the area, knowing the missiles were in place.

"I knew that a BUK came from Luhansk. At the time, I was told that a BUK from Luhansk was coming under the flag of the LNR," he said, referring to the Luhansk People's Republic, the main rebel group operating in Luhansk, one of two rebel provinces along with Donetsk, the province where the crash took place.

"Kiev knew that this BUK existed; that the BUK was heading for Snezhnoye," he said, referring to a village 10 km west of the crash site. "They knew that it would be deployed there and provoked the use of this BUK by starting an airstrike on a target they didn't need, that their planes hadn't touched for a week."

A senior Russian official called on Thursday on the United States to prove its claims that the passenger airliner was hit by a missile fired from rebel-held territory in Ukraine.

"They've said US intelligence has technical data and satellite photos which show that the missile was launched from rebel-held territory. The question is where is this data," Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said in an interview with Russia-24 television.

US officials have in recent days said that satellite and other "technical" intelligence confirmed that flight MH17 was hit last Thursday by an SA-11 surface-to-air missile from an area controlled by rebels.

A senior US intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said on Tuesday in Washington, "It's a solid case that it's an SA-11 that was fired from eastern Ukraine under conditions the Russians helped create".

Washington has accused Moscow of supplying rebels in Ukraine with weapons, a charge Moscow denies.

AFP-AP

(China Daily 07/25/2014 page10)