Ukraine says rebels shoot down Malaysian airliner, 295 dead

GRABOVO: A Malaysian airliner was shot down over eastern Ukraine by pro-Russian militants on Thursday, killing all 298 people aboard.

Raising the stakes in the East-West showdown between Kiev and Moscow, the official blamed "terrorists" using a ground-to-air missile and Ukraine´s prime minister called the downing of the flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur a "catastrophe".

A Reuters correspondent saw burning wreckage and bodies on the ground at the village of Grabovo, about 40 km (25 miles) from the Russian border in an area where pro-Russian rebels have been active and have claimed to have shot down other aircraft.

The Boeing 777 came down near the city of Donetsk, stronghold of pro-Russian rebels, interior ministry official Anton Gerashchenko said on Facebook, adding it was "shot down with a Buk anti-aircraft system by terrorists" - the term the Kiev government uses for militants seeking to unite eastern Ukraine with Russia.

Malaysia Airlines said on its Twitter feed it had lost contact with its flight MH-17 from Amsterdam. "The last known position was over Ukrainian air space," it said.

A rebel leader said Ukrainian forces shot the airliner down.

Ukrainian official said their military was not involved.

Interfax-Ukraine quoted another Ukrainian official as saying the plane disappeared from radar when it was flying at 10,000 metres (33,000 feet), a typical cruising altitude for airliners.

Ukraine has accused Russia of taking an active role in the four-month-old conflict in recent days and accused it earlier on Thursday of shooting down a Ukrainian Sukhoi Su-25 fighter jet - an accusation that Moscow denied.

The military commander of the rebels, a Russian named Igor Strelkov, had written on his social media page shortly before the report of the airliner being downed that his forces had brought down an Antonov An-26 in the same area. It is a turboprop transport plane of a type used by Ukraine´s forces. (Reuters)