Despite a promise by the Poroshenko government of a ceasefire for 40 km around the downed Malaysia Airlines MH17, warplanes have been active daily in the area, and today two Su-25 fighters were shot down over Dmytrivka, east of Donetsk.
Rebels confirmed the two downings, saying they shot down the planes with shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles. Such incidents have been increasingly common as Ukraine has turned to airstrikes in their “anti-terrorist operation.”
Equally common to rebels shooting down a Ukrainian warplane is Ukraine trying to blame Russia for directly doing it, and once again today officials claimed the anti-aircraft fire came from Russian territory, though as usual they offered no evidence of that assessment.
There were questions as to whether or not the rebels used shoulder-fired missiles or a more advanced 9k37 Buk. Rebels confirmed they had a Buk vehicle, though the commander quoted said he believes it was sent to Russia after the MH17 incident.
Go rebels.
Poroshenko is flying his planes awfully close to Russia, isn't he? Is it provocation? What's he trying to do? Putin could end this once and for all, in what, a day or so? And if that idiot Poroshenko keeps it up, I don't see how Russia can avoid getting involved. It might be the only way to put a stop to this and I don't think NATO or the US could do a whole lot about it but whine.
US war mongers from Democratic Party to AIPAC trying hard to start a war with Russia no matter the consequences. Barack Hussein Obama policies and politics paving the way for Third World War, creating such momentum is his duty toward AIPAC, Paul Wolfowitz, Berzinski and all others whom are supported Bush and know Barack Hussein Obama.
This article needs to be amended. The original reuters article – and the linked tribune article – about the commander admitting to having Buk never said that the missile went back to Russia. He said back to Luhansk – elsewhere in rebel held territory.
It's also worth noting- not that it has anything to do with the overall story- that SU-25's are ground attack aircraft, not fighters; they are the Soviet Union's version of our A-10 Warthog. As such, they are not supersonic, and are limited to relatively low altitudes (5,000 meters with a full load, 7K empty) and, like our A-10's, are continually exposed to and susceptible to intense ground fire in combat zones (such as we are presently seeing in the Ukraine).
It's not that difficult to imagine some well-trained anti-aircraft gunners and missile crews being able to paint and shoot down such slow-moving aircraft, especially those who already know the capabilities of the SU-25 inside and out. No need for Russians to shoot them down; the separatist crews are perfectly capable of performing their missions.
But wait! The Ukrainians (and the US) said the separatists couldn't have shot MH17 down because they lacked sophisticated anti-aircraft systems (of course, Batman, it HAD to be the Russians!)- yet the separatists have been shooting Ukrainian planes out of the sky since the conflict began. So why now all of a sudden can they not do the job? Did all those gunners and missile crews forget everything they know? Did they ruin out of ammunition? WHERE'S THE BEEF?