Two Ukrainian fighter jets were shot down over rebel-held territory Wednesday, with a government spokesman saying the surface-to-air missiles appeared to have been launched from Russia.
The planes were hit near Savur Moglia, Ukrainian officials said, not far from the scene of last week’s downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 that killed all 298 passengers and crew on board.
Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council said the planes were cruising at about 17,000 feet when they came under fire, and that “preliminary information” showed the missiles were launched from the Russian side of the border.
“They were shot down very professionally. The terrorists do not have such professionals,” said Col. Andriy Lysenko, the council’s spokesman.
The pro-Russian separatist rebels claimed to have shot down the jets themselves.
The pilots of both jets ejected, but their fates were unknown and a search party was looking for them.
The downed Sukhoi-25 attack jets were part of a squadron of four planes returning to base from near the Russian border, where they had provided air support to Ukrainian ground troops.
Meanwhile, a rebel leader Wednesday admitted that pro-Russian fighters in Luhansk had a missile launcher like the one American officials say was used to blast Flight 17 out of the sky.
Battalion Vostok Commander Alexander Khodakovsky also said the Russian-made Buk weapons system was provided by Russia.
“I think they sent it back [to Russia],” Khodakovsky said of rebels from the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic.
“Because I found out about it at exactly the moment that I found out that this tragedy had taken place. They probably sent it back in order to remove proof of its presence.”
Khodakovsky also alleged that Ukraine “provoked the use of this type of weapon against a plane that was flying with peaceful civilians” by launching airstrikes in the area while knowing the Buks were there.
Dutch investigators said the voice-recording “black box” from the doomed flight was damaged but hadn’t been tampered with before rebels handed it over Monday, along with another box containing flight data.
It could take up to 24 hours to extract information from the boxes before it can be analyzed.