Don't have firepower to shoot down aircraft: Pro-Russian separatist

Updated: Friday, July 18, 2014, 14:24 [IST]

malaysia-plane — People walk amongst the debris at the crash site of a passenger plane near the village of Grabovo, Ukraine, Thursday, July 17, 2014.

Singapore, July 18: Ukrainian separatists on Thursday said they did not have the firepower to shoot down an aeroplane, a TIME magazine report said. According to Oleg Tsarev, a pro-Russian separatist, as quoted by TIME: "We don't have weapons that can take down a plane from that altitude." Tsarev is a leader of the breakaway Donetsk People's Republic.

A Kuala Lumpur-bound Malaysia Airlines aircraft MH 17 crashed in eastern Ukraine on Thursday night, killing all 298 people on broad, bringing the spotlight on the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Russian state media recently congratulated the rebels on their arms acquisitions

However, just about three weeks ago, the Russian state media congratulated the rebels on their latest military weapons: a set of Russian missile launchers seized from a military base in Ukraine. The Kremlin's main TV networl Vesti even announced that the Donetsk fighters caotured an anti-aircraft military station, the TIME report said.

Shooting down Ukrainian military aircraft has become a common occurrence nowadays. In the last three days, three military planes were shot down by rebels.

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