"We have just shot down a plane. ... A
plume of smoke is visible."
The biggest clue so far into who may have shot
down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 might be what
Ukrainian officials say are intercepted
communications between pro-Russian separatists
operating in eastern Ukraine.
The recordings, translated and distributed by
Ukrainian officials, begin with an alleged militant
informing others that a plane has been shot
down.
The communication picks up later, once the
alleged separatists reach the scene of the crash.
Here's a segment of a conversation
between an alleged pro-Russian
separatist named Major and another
identified as Grek, per Ukrainian
authorities:
Major: The plane broke into pieces in
the air ... we have found the first 200
(dead). It's a civilian."
Grek: "How are things going there?"
M: "Well, we are 100% sure that it
was a civilian plane."
G: "Are there a lot of people?"
M: "F--k! The debris was falling
straight into the yards."
M: "Here are remnants of internal
brackets, chairs, bodies."
G: "Are there any weapons?"
M: "Nothing at all. Civilian belongings,
medical scraps, towels, toilet paper."
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy
Yatsenyuk on Friday blasted the
"terrorists" he blamed for shooting
down the plane a day earlier, with 298
people aboard.
CNN cannot independently verify the authenticity
of the phone call.
But Lt. Col. Rick Francona, a CNN military
analyst, said he would not be surprised if
Ukrainians were able to monitor the
communications of the separatists.
"Ukrainian intelligence, they're pretty good in their
own territory," he said Friday on CNN's "New
Day."
In a final segment of the alleged
intercepted phone calls, an unidentified
militant allegedly speaks with a
Russian Cossack, Mykola Kozitsyn.
Militant: "On TV, they say like it is a
Ukrainian An-26, a transport plane.
But the writing says 'Malaysia
Airlines.' What was it doing over the territory of
Ukraine?"
Kozitsyn: "Well then it was bringing spies. Why
the hell were they flying? This is war going on."
While these recordings have garnered worldwide
attention, they are not the first alleged intercepted
calls that Ukrainian officials have released. Others
were released earlier this month.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin told CNN
on Friday that the phone calls were intercepted at
the same time that the plane was shot down.
Prime Minister Yatsenyuk called for international
support "to bring to justice all these bastards
who committed this international crime."
Russia has not directly responded to the alleged
content of the audio, but President Vladimir Putin
has blamed Ukraine for the crash. "This tragedy
would not have happened if there had been peace
on that land, or in any case, if military operations
in southeastern Ukraine had not been renewed,"
he said.
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