Ukrainian officials release Russian phone call about Malaysian plane crash

Both the Ukrainian government and pro-Russian separatists are accusing each other of shooting down a passenger Malaysian aircraft that crashed on Thursday in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 passengers aboard.

To back up their accusations, Ukrainian security officials have released a phone call recording that they had intercepted, on which Russian military intelligence officers discuss the plane crash with rebel forces.

Speaking in Russian, the men can be heard talking about how they shot down the aircraft and then realized it was a civilian plane with no weapons aboard. They also talk about how the men, women and children aboard had been all killed:

‘It’s actually a civilian plane. – Are there many people? – Lots! Debris has fallen on houses. – What type of plane was it? – I don’t know yet, I haven’t been to the (crash) site. – Weapons on it? – Nothing, just civilian stuff, medical material, towels, toilet paper. – Documents? – Yes, the passport of an Indonesian student.’

Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, the Ukrainian Chief of Security Services, said that more proof will be made available to confirm that Russian forces are responsible for shooting down the plane: ‘This is not the last proof that we are going to publish, with the authorisation from the Ukrainian president, in order to open all possible channels and have an unbiased investigation of this crime, to make sure that the Russian military who committed this crime, are going to be punished.’

Meanwhile, separatists in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic defend their statements by saying that they do not possess powerful enough weapons to take down an aircraft flying that high and that the crash was the result of a ‘provocation by the Ukrainian army.’