

The Associated Press reported that its journalist also saw on Thursday a launcher similar to the Buk missile system near Snizhne. On Thursday, hours before the Malaysian jet went down, Twitter users reported seeing a Buk system in the rebel-held town of Torez, about 20 kilometers south of the site of the MH17 crash, moving in the direction of the neighboring town of Snizhne. On July 14, after a Ukrainian AN-26 plane was shot down in eastern Ukraine, the separatists claimed that they had shot down a plane with the Buk system they captured at the end of June and have since repaired. On June 29, separatist Web sites reported that the rebels have acquired an unknown number of Buk surface-to-air missile systems after taking over a Ukrainian anti-aircraft defense military base in Donesk. Ukrainska Pravda Web site posted a collection of links, screen shots, and Twitter posts in support of a theory that the plane was shot by the pro-Russian rebels who likely mistook it for a Ukrainian military transport plane. The Malaysian jet, flying at the altitude of some 10,000 meters, likely could be brought down only by a sophisticated weapons system such as the Russian-made Buk surface-to-air missile system. Since the beginning of June, the separatists have shot down several Ukrainian military aircrafts, including two earlier this week. The issue of whether and to what extent the Ukrainian forces are taking sufficient measures to avoid civilian deaths when battling with the pro-Russian separatists is also likely to draw increased attention. Just the day before the plane crash, videos of Grad rocket launchers firing from the Russian side of the border in the direction of Ukraine appeared on YouTube, and the precise location has of the rockets has been identified as the north-west section of the Russian border town of Gukovo. The investigation of the plane crash is also sure to raise broader questions than the crash itself, such as what kind of heavy armaments the separatists possess and how they acquired it, Russia’s role in supplying the separatists, and even whether Russia’s own regular forces have engaged in attacks against the Ukrainian side. The MH17 tragedy draws renewed western attention to the conflict in Eastern Ukraine and has all the potential to further aggravate relations between Russia and Ukraine and Russia and the West. The three months-long conflict has been retreating to the backburner of the international news coverage, even as the humanitarian crisis in the region engulfed by the rebellion and the death toll has been growing. The crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over rebel-controlled area of eastern Ukraine thrust the conflict between the Ukrainian government and the Russia-backed rebels into renewed international focus.
