President Barack Obama said Friday that the Malaysia Airlines plane that crashed in Ukraine was shot down in an “outrage of unspeakable proportion.” He identified one American who died in the crash as Quinn Lucas Schansman.
He also said that pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine have received a “steady flow” of arms and training from Russia, including anti-aircraft weapons. He called for a “credible international investigation” into the shooting down of the plane.
The President called for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine between the Kiev government and pro-Russian rebels in eastern regions so that an international investigation can proceed with no tampering of evidence.
[Previous story, 11:30 a.m.]
A senior U.S. diplomat pointed the finger Friday at pro-Russian rebels in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in Ukraine, an act that killed 298 people.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council that the plane was “likely downed by a surface-to-air missile … operated from a separatist-held location in eastern Ukraine.” If pro-Russian separatists are responsible for shooting down the plane with a missile, investigators can’t rule out the possibility that Russia offered help to operate the system, she said.
Power also said Russia should take steps to cool tensions in Ukraine.
“Russia can end this war,” she said. “Russia must end this war.”
The United States and Ukraine are committed to a diplomatic solution to the crisis in eastern Ukraine, she said, but if Russia continues to choose escalation, additional sanctions will follow.
Separatist leaders also boasted on social media about shooting down the plane and later deleted those references, she said.
None of those on board survived Thursday’s crash, she said. Three were infants.
Her statement came after a U.S. defense official said a preliminary classified U.S. intelligence analysis had concluded that the missile that hit Flight 17 most likely was fired by pro-Russian separatists inside eastern Ukraine.
The official, who has direct access to the latest information, declined to be identified because of its sensitivity.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk earlier blasted the “terrorists” he blamed for shooting down Flight 17.
He called on all governments to back the investigation and “to support the Ukrainian government to bring to justice all these bastards who committed this international crime.”
Russia, Ukraine trade accusations
Since the Malaysia Airlines jet fell from the sky above eastern Ukraine on Thursday, Russia and Ukraine — which routinely uses the word “terrorists” to describe pro-Russian rebels — have traded blame and accusations.
“Terrorists have killed almost 300 persons with one shot,” Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Thursday. “Among them are women, children, citizens of different countries of the world.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed the finger back at Ukraine, blaming its recent tough military operations against separatists for the volatility in the region.
But Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin rejected that claim, telling CNN it was up to Russia to stop the flow of heavy weaponry across Ukraine’s eastern border and push the separatists to embrace a cease-fire.
He also dismissed any suggestion that Ukrainian forces may have been involved in Thursday’s tragedy.
“There was no way our forces could be engaged in any way in this incident,” Klimkin said, adding that Ukraine did not have any military assets in the area that could have shot down MH17.
Klimkin said Ukraine intercepted telephone calls between “terrorists” at the time the plane was shot down.
Yatsenyuk called for all nations to do everything they could to stop what he said was not now just a war in Ukraine or Europe, but a “war against the world.”
Meanwhile, international inspectors headed to the crash site Friday tasked with finding the plane’s flight data recorders, which may lie amid the human remains and debris strewn across fields near the town of Torez.
Ukrainian government officials said 181 bodies had been found.
The latest information from Malaysia Airlines indicates that the Netherlands has suffered the harshest blow, with at least 189 of its citizens among those killed.
Experts have voiced concern that the crash site has not been properly secured, making the recovery of bodies and collection of evidence difficult.
Source: CNN
