Ukrainian Interior Ministry official Anton Gerashchenko said on Facebook last night: "Just now, over Torez, terrorists using a Buk anti-aircraft system kindly given to them by Putin have shot down a civilian airliner flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur."
The Buk - which means 'beech tree' in Russia - is a 1970s vintage, truck-mounted, radar-guided missile system, codenamed SA-11 Gadfly by Cold War NATO adversaries. It fires a 5.7-meter (19-foot), 55-kg (110-lb) missile for up to 28 km (18 miles).
The airliner was flying at a height of 33,000ft, which is about 10 km, and so anybody with a Buk could feasibly bring down the passenger jet. We await the evidence, hoping it doesn't end up coming from politicians who have distorted it to billy-o'.
I'm not forgetting that in war, the first casualty is truth.
