Rebels, Ukraine deny any role in shooting down Malaysian plane

BLAME GAME With no clarity over exact chain of events, both sides accuse each other for the crash

Ukraine says a passenger plane carrying 295 people was shot down Thursday as it flew over the country, and both the government and the pro-Russia separatists who have been fighting in the region denied any responsibility for downing the plane.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called the downing an act of terrorism and called for an international investigation into the crash. The Donetsk region government said a plane crashed Thursday near a village called Grabovo, which it said is currently under the control of the separatists. The region where the flight was lost has seen severe fighting between the two sides in recent days. Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said on his Facebook page the plane was flying at an altitude of 33,000 feet. He said it was hit by a missile fired from a Buk launcher, which can fire missiles up to an altitude of 72,000 feet. Separatist leader Andrei Purgin told The Associated Press that he was certain that Ukrainian troops had shot the plane down but gave no explanation or proof for his statement.

There have been disputes over planes being shot down earlier in the region. On Wednesday evening, a Ukrainian fighter jet was shot down by an air-to-air missile from a Russian plane, Ukrainian authorities said Thursday, adding to what Kiev says is mounting evidence that Moscow is directly supporting the separatist insurgents.