Andrei Lubenski: Ukrainian military officials still denying their implication in Tu-154 crash. Though nobody believes them

Just after reports about supposed anti-aircraft missile hitting a Russian Tu-154, officials of Ukrainian Defence Ministry started to appear with refutations. According to commander general of Ukrainian anti-aircraft troops, Colonel-General Vladimir Tkachev, the results of objective and radiometric examination clearly show that any Ukrainian missile could not have hit the Tu-154. While carrying out manoeuvres, 11 unmanned planes were fired upon, nine of the planes were stricken, one plane self-destructed, and the remaining one landed in a polygon area. All the measures for guaranteeing security were kept. There was also an official statement of the Defence Ministry in which the possibility of Ukrainian militaries’ implication in the crash was denied. Ukrainian defence minister Alexandr Kuzmuk said on Friday that the missiles were launched at a distance that did not exceeddoes 40 km and “out of direction of Tu-154 crash." The minister stressed that a multilevel control in 22 points wasrealized, and all of the points had shown all the falls and targets had been in near zone of firing. Though even in Ukraine, any statements of the Ukrainian military are being taken skeptically. Everybody remembers the case with a missile that hit a block of flats in the town Brovary in 2000. At that time, the military also denied everything, until they were driven into a corner with proofs. Although innocent people died in this accident, the defence minister did not send in his resignation. Now, this case is being remembered while listening to the military's refutations. Ukrainian Prime Minister Anatoli Kinakh is not so resolute in his estimations. According to him, the missile version of the catastrophe has a right to exist. However, the main version of the Ukrainian government is still the version that assumes the crash was a result of a terrorist act. The situation could probably be cleared up with the information of the “black boxes." However, they will be very hard to recover. . In Sevastopol, in the sea department of the Ukrainian National Academy of Science, there is the necessary equipment for such an operation. However, to realize this operation, special preparations must be carried out: the deep-water equipment has not been used for a very long time.

Andrei Lubenski PRAVDA.Ru