Russia’s response to crash
WASHINGTON — Video of a rocket launcher, one surface-toair missile missing, leaving the likely launch site. Imagery showing the firing. Calls claiming credit for the strike. Recordings said to reveal a cover-up at the crash site.
“A buildup of extraordinary circumstantial evidence … it’s powerful here,” said Secretary of State John Kerry, a former prosecutor, and it holds Russiansupported rebels in eastern Ukraine responsible for shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, with the Kremlin complicit in the deaths of nearly 300 passengers and crew members.
“This is the moment of truth for Russia,” said Kerry, leveling some of Washington’s harshest criticism of Moscow since the crisis in Ukraine began.
“Russia is supporting these separatists. Russia is arming these separatists. Russia is training these separatists, and Russia has not yet done the things necessary in order to try to bring them under control,” he said.
In a round of television interviews, Kerry cited a mix of U.S. and Ukrainian intelligence and social media reports that he said “obviously points a very clear finger at the separatists” for firing the missile that brought the plane down, killing nearly 300 passengers and crew.
“It’s pretty clear that this is a system that was transferred from Russia into the hands of separatists,” he said.
Putin and other Russian officials have blamed the government in Ukraine for creating the situation and atmosphere in which the plane was downed, but have yet to directly address the allegations that the separatists were responsible or were operating with technical assistance from Moscow.
Kerry accused Russia of “playing” a dual-track policy in Ukraine of saying one thing and doing another. That, he said, “is really threatening both the larger interests as well as that region and threatening Ukraine itself.”
He lamented that the level of trust between Washington and Moscow is now at a low ebb, saying it “would be ridiculous at this point in time to be trusting” of what the Kremlin says.