Ukraine says plane shot down by rocket from Russia

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: CBC/AP

A Ukrainian military transport plane was shot down Monday along the country's eastern border with Russia, the defence minister said.

Rebels in conflict-wracked eastern Ukraine immediately claimed responsibility for downing the Antonov-26 but Ukrainian Defence Minister Valeriy Heletey said the rocket may have been fired from Russia.

Heletey said the plane was flying at an altitude of 6,500 metres, which he said was too high to be reached with the weapons used by the separatists fighting government troops.

Ukrainian authorities say plane may have been carrying around 20 people but there was no immediate word on casualties.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-says-plane-shot-down-by-rocket-from-russia-1.2706039

[Tetris_Iguana]

1. Hopefully cooler heads prevail.

[awake]

2. Our satellite images of this event should be able to prove if this happened

If we can show the facts with photos then our sanctions should tighten. England said today that they are ready to tighten the screws.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. You can't often get satellite images of real-time events

If you want to monitor somewhere permanently, you have to use a geostationary satellite, 23,000 miles up. To get the resolution to monitor a region a few hundred miles across and be able to see individual planes and missiles all the time just isn't going to happen.

[freshwest]

5. Good explanation. It works that way in movies, though. Just sayin'

[awake]

6. That is why I said "if we can"

I agree but we also may have high altitude drones in the area but then again we may not want to show our hand

[joshcryer]

19. SBIRS could.

But you ain't getting that intel.

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. If you mean this, it's an incomplete system for tracking ballistic missiles

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-Based_Infrared_System

which is quite different from tracking transport aircraft and surface-to-air missiles.

[joshcryer]

24. I think it is more capable than let on.

[cosmicone]

4. So we support the genocide perpetrated by Svoboda and Right Sektor

in Ukraine? Are we really that desperate to win PNAC conflicts that we'd support white supremacists and neonazis?

http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2014/07/11/nr-black-ukrainians-moving-to-russia.cnn.html

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/05/life-in-a-war-zone-ukraine

[snooper2]

16. You should have watched ALL the VICE news reports on the situation

They maybe you wouldn't have this absurd notion of what is going on over there

[davidpdx]

28. Why would he do that when it is easier to give the Fox News version?

[joshcryer]

18. There won't be a reaction.

As long as the support is clandestine the USA will wink and nod, helping the other side.

[Igel]

7. Last I heard the jury was still out a bit.

One of the crew said it was an air-to-air missile, but that requires heavy verification.

Others are saying that it was an surface-to-air missile but that could have been fired from something brought over from Russia into Ukraine or from Russia itself, given their range. "Buk" was one system name that was suggested, but again, verification is needed.

The area it was shot down is over near Krasnodon, which is a hot point. A lot of people from Lugansk proper said that the armored vehicles were moving "in the wrong direction," given the attacks by the Ukr forces in the north and west of the city. They were heading towards Krasnodon. If Krasnodon is cut off from the border, it'll be bad news for the rebels: They rely on near-nightly influxes of money, fighters, munitions, and armored vehicles from Russia. Tanks, APCs. It's not uncommon for the Ukr press to report on a convoy of 40 or 60 vehicles crossing the border, and a few hours later for the rebel's press to announce that they've gotten reinforcements "from elsewhere".

So a recent convoy included a series of Grad missile launchers, and a few hours later it was announced that a bunch of recently arrived Grads were deployed against the Lugansk airport and against Roskoshnoe. Claims are the convoy before that included Russian experts to help get a munitions factory and an armored vehicle repair plant up and running in Lugansk. Apparently the munitions factory was moved to Barnaul during WWII, and never fully repatriated--when it mostly moved back to Lugansk a portion of the "company" stayed in Barnaul, so they shared equipment and expertise. The Lugansk workers vanished, so the claim is they brought in workers from Barnaul. There are also claims reported as confirmed that the rebels now have T-72 tanks.

So if there's new equipment, that's where it would be spotted first, and since that transit point is so important it's where it would be employed--even if it hadn't quite crossed the border. (The polite claim is that the border guards on the Russian side are simply blind and incompetent. The less polite claim is that they're helping when not turning a blind eye.)

Note that if you go SW a ways towards D'yakovo there are new clashes in an area that has never been really quite but has become quite active in the last few days. As the Krasnodon area comes closer to being cut off from Russia, the DNR folk have been trying to reopen the border crossing at D'yakovo. They can't let their supply lines to the Fatherland be cut off and stay cut off given their heavy losses and reliance on all things Russian.

[freshwest]

8. Not sure if this can be proven. The border appears to be open, launchers could cross. I see it says

that the rebels don't have the right equipment to do this.
They've brought down planes before, but may have been at a lower altitude. If that part of Ukraine is where Russia has contracts to make their weaponry, the locals may have access to more lethal weaponry than this piece says. And the Russians appear to be crossing the border at will, with equipment.

But isn't this article inferring this was the action of the Russian government itself?

If so, or even if the claim is they are allowing irregulars to commit those kind of actions, that's pretty rough stuff, there.

And the results (mind you, my only source are DU postings) of sanctions appear mixed. If it is at all possible, the Europeans ought to bring the Russians into this for a better outcome than what those people are been suffering now. There must be some thing the Russian expect to get from this course of action.

Is it all about the LNG?

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. Yes, I think the earlier times were at lower altitude

where portable weapons could manage it. This is definitely accusing the Russian government of doing this - either directly, or by supplying heavy weaponry to the rebels - it's not something a few mercenaries could get hold of.

[another_liberal]

10. More likely it came from Disney World . . .

Epcot Center would certainly have less to lose by shooting down a Ukrainian plane right now than the Russian Federation does.

[joshcryer]

17. What does Russia have to lose with the internet populated by apologists?

Anyone with sense knows that the rebels couldn't hit it at that altitude.

But every news story I see on this that allows commenting is full of Russia apologia.

[another_liberal]

26. I don't think we are even talking about the same thing . . .

What is happening in eastern Ukraine is a real tragedy, a real tragedy happening to real people. All the arguments on internet chat boards equal nothing but bullshit by any comparison.

[joshcryer]

27. Says Epcot Center quip guy...

[davidpdx]

29. We have a Gobbels wanna be

[joshcryer]

30. Seems like it.

[davidpdx]

32. and I'm not talking about this type of gobble gobble

[joshcryer]

31. Seems like it.

[Fred Sanders]

11. When did a surface to air missile become a "rocket"? Seems conflation of words is on purpose....

where have I heard that word "rocket" referred to before and it's military capacity misrepresented?

A rocket is not a missile....good job CBC/AP. Especially to AP, the news aggregator of the 1%.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. The overwhelming majority of missiles are rockets

Cruise missiles are the exception. Do you know of any surface-to-air missile that isn't a rocket?

[Fred Sanders]

13. Missile are not generally referred to as rockets, in warfare, rockets is more general. Why call a

missile a rocket, rather than the more specific definition that fits a SAM far better?

[jakeXT]

14. The BBC is using quotation marks

The plane was targeted with "a more powerful missile" than a shoulder-carried missile, "probably fired" from Russia. The crew survived


http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28299334

[Fred Sanders]

15. That is what I am talking about. AP is a news aggregator, you can use their stories and even

modify the original report as long as the full meaning remains and AP is given co-credit.
CBC changed the story to use rocket, and BBC used missile....not sure what the AP original news feed said about the word....

[awake]

22. "you saw TOMATO I saw TOMÅTO..."

What difference does it matter what the rocket/missile is call it still downed the plane.

[Fred Sanders]

23. So the rockets from Hamas are actually missiles, just like these SAM's? I see a connection in

using a more general word.

[awake]

25. And you point is?

[bemildred]

21. Ukrainian military plane shot down; pro-Russian separatists take responsibility

MOSCOW — Pro-Russian separatists asserted responsibility for shooting down a Ukrainian military plane and taking four of its crew members prisoner Monday, as fighting intensified in eastern Ukraine.

“We have enough armaments now that are needed to shoot down an aircraft of this kind. It wasn’t in the least bit a hard task for our militia forces to do,” Alexei Chmilenko, a rebel leader in Luhansk, told the Russian news service Interfax. “One doesn’t need any of the precision weapons of the latest generation to shoot down an aircraft of this kind.”

But Ukrainian officials say the A-26 transport plane was flying too high above Luhansk to have been brought down with regular surface-to-air missiles — surmising that the rebels are either being armed by the Russians with more powerful weapons or that Russia shot down the aircraft from its own territory.

“There are two possibilities under consideration on the basis of a report from the Ukrainian pilots,” Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told reporters Monday. “Either a strike of a ground-based missile fired from a Pantsir missile system or a strike of an . . . air-to-air homing missile fired from a Russian aircraft.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/in-russia-growing-push-to-launch-strikes-on-ukraine-over-alleged-deadly-border-shelling/2014/07/14/ebf699cc-0b61-11e4-8c9a-923ecc0c7d23_story.html