Ukraine's Defence Minister has publicly admitted for the first time that he never doubted that a Ukrainian missile was responsible for downing a Russian passenger jet. “For me, from the very beginning there were no other versions and there could not be,” he said in remarks shown on Russia's private TV channel.
He said that it was time to find out why the missile that brought down the tu-154 earlier this month went astray.
“There is another matter, what caused this, what fatal coincidence of circumstances - and all officials are working on this now,” Kuzmuk said.
He made his remarks during telephone conversations with citizens who called a special hot line to talk with the Defence Minister. The TU-154 airliner, en route from Israel to Novosibirsk in Siberia, went down October 4 in the Black Sea after an explosion.
All 78 people on board, most of them recent Russian immigrants to Israel, were killed. The remains of 15 people were recovered.
Bureau Report