Irina Petrenko: Ukraine’s late apologies

Ukraine admitted that a missile S-200 could hit the Russian passenger airliner that was following the route from Tel Aviv to Novosibirsk. The head of the anti-missile defense troops admitted that the unpremeditated destruction of Tu-154 plane was a tragic accident. Before, however, all Ukrainian political and military leaders were protecting their non-participation in the tragedy, they insisted on that, as if they had admitted their was a malfunction in the anti-aircraft complex, they would have been accused of international terrorism. Ukraine took an idiotic position – “we are brotherly countries and there could not be such an accident.” Ukraine was standing stubbornly on that position until it was driven into a corner. The major principle was to reject everything.

There have been no military exercises performed in the area, where the actual crash took place, - the district is too close to the air traffic zones, in which a lot of passenger jets fly. But this is another subject to talk about – may be about the qualification of senior military officials of Ukraine, who are sending in their resignations now. American media informed about the possible version of the plane crash, Russia was collecting evidence, but Ukraine was hurriedly fishing for that missile, which should have been self-destroyed. The country tried to count kilometers from the plane to the missile, set up its own commission for investigating the reasons of the plane crash. This was done pursuant to the decision made by President Leonid Kuchma who has done it all having said “there should not be a tragedy made of it.”

Now it is awkward to listen to late condolences – 8 days after the tragedy, after the joint Russian-Israeli commission found indisputable evidence. “I am ready to take all conclusions of the experts for granted,” – the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian anti-missile defense troops, Tkachev said.

Ukraine’s Defense Minister also apologized today in front of the relatives of those who died as a result of the crash: “We do not know the actual reason of the crash, but we do know that we are involved in it.”

Anyway, it seems that the Ukrainian military men knew about the real reason why it happened. They were just hoping the catastrophe would not be unveiled. They just wanted to protect their interdepartmental interests.

Irina Petrenko PRAVDA.Ru

AP photo: An unidentified Russian, whose relative perished in Thursday's Tupolev 154 crash, scatters roses at the crash site, aboard a ship in the Black Sea