– Moscow accuses Ukraine, West –
Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin ignored Western complaints and accused Ukrainian authorities of negligence in allowing flights over an area where anti-aircraft systems were operating.
“Today Kiev declared a full closure of the airspace. Why couldn’t this have been done earlier, not waiting for hundreds of victims to have been incurred?” he said.
He said the Ukrainian military was killing civilians, accused the United States of pushing Kiev to escalate the crisis and blamed the West for impasse in efforts to halt the violence.
Ukrainian Ambassador Yuriy Sergeyev meanwhile reiterated Kiev’s position that the jet was shot down by terrorists, an act he said could only have been done by an SA-11 or similar missile system.
“The question is where did they get this sophisticated air defense system from?” he said.
“This tragedy would not have been possible if Russia did not support the terrorists” and did not supply them with sophisticated air defense systems, he said.
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