The missile launcher used to shoot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 may have been photographed rumbling through Russia under a huge tarp three days after being used in the attack.
A Russian blogger reportedly used a dashboard camera to capture video of the SA-11 missile system — also known as a Buk — aboard a military truck Saturday night. The blogger followed the truck for more than a mile after it crossed the border from Ukraine, according to the Daily Mail.
“His opinion [is that it is] exactly that Buk that made the shot,” the paper reported, citing one translation of audio of the blogger’s running commentary posted online.
Apparently in response to the blogger’s assertion, the driver is believed to have said, “No kidding.”
The two-minute video shows a truck carrying a large piece of equipment that’s hidden by a massive tan tarp as it travels along well-marked roads.
The truck bears the same license plate as a similar vehicle that was photographed previously in a shot posted on the Web that shows it carrying a tank.
Toward the end of the video, the car with the camera passes the truck, and another truck with near-identical cargo is seen up ahead.
Ukrainian officials have said that three SA-11 missile systems — including the one used in Thursday’s attack — were smuggled out of the country and into Russia on Friday.
On Sunday, Secretary of State John Kerry said officials had authenticated an earlier video showing one SA-11 leaving the likely launch site with at least one missile missing.
The US Embassy in Kiev also confirmed the authenticity of a recording that caught a rebel commander telling a Russian military intelligence officer that pro-Russia insurgents had shot down a plane.
“Audio data provided to the press by the Ukrainian security service was evaluated by intelligence-community analysts who confirmed these were authentic conversations between known separatist leaders, based on comparing the Ukraine-released Internet audio to recordings of known separatists,” the embassy said in a statement.