"Russia Is A Killer"

"[Tanks observed in Ukraine]...do not bear markings or camouflage paint like those used by the Ukrainian military. In fact, they do not have markings at all, which is reminiscent of tactics used by Russian elements that were involved in destabilizing Crimea."
NATO statement

"[Rebels held the tanks, but it was] improper to ask [where they came from]."
Denis Pushilin, Donetsk People's Republic

"[Rebels] cynically and treacherously [using anti-aircraft and heavy-machine-guns shot down the Ukrainian plane and its personnel...sympathy to families of the dead] for their tragic and irreparable loss."
Ukrainian defence ministry

An armed pro-Russian separatist stands guard at the site of the crash of the Il-76 Ukrainian army transport plane in Luhansk on June 14, 2014. Pro-Russian separatists shot down the transport plane with an anti-aircraft missile as it came in to land early on Saturday. (Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters)

• 
  

Troops and 49 crew of a Ukrainian military transport plane are dead, in a major escalation in the conflict between estranged Russian-speaking rebels and the government, on Saturday, June 14. The aircraft was shot down, according to Alexei Toporov, spokesman for the 'Luhansk People's Republic', when the Ukrainian "occupiers" ignored an ultimatum that the Luhansk People's Republic issued them to abandon the Luhansk airport.

The rebels were merely asserting their sovereign right to protect their territory.

Luhansk, close to the Russian border, represents an area where separatist insurgents have seized government buildings and declared their independence in the wake of disputed referendums, ostensibly granting them the authorization of popular opinion, to move into Russia's orbit with the annexation of the region in emulation of Moscow's warm embrace of the Crimean peninsula.

What is good enough for Crimea is seen to be the inevitable future of Luhansk region.

Russia, needless to say, is innocent in all of this; they have neither agitated, encouraged, nor given promises of any kind to the rebels.

Moscow simply looks on, perturbed at the violent reactions of the government of Ukraine, doing harm to Russian speakers whom Moscow has declared their intention to protect. No third column has entered Ukraine from across the Russian border, no underground activity to persuade Russian-speaking Ukrainians that their interests will be advanced within the Russian federation.

When newly-elected Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, it was a meeting between old acquaintances who know one another fairly well in circumstances straitened by underhanded, covert aggression by the latter, and firm rejection and objections on the part of the former.

Mr. Poroshenko is willing to restore working relations with Russia, but on Ukrainian best-interests terms, not as a supplicant.

In clearly stating his informed opinion that the Kremlin has been training and arming the rebels, and insisting that such vicious provocations be halted immediately, Mr. Poroshenko has experienced what he no doubt anticipated; the protestations of a blank wall of innocence of any such provocations.

Mr. Poroshenko has been left with little option but to draw away from further one-on-one high-level contact with his Russian counterpart who has also been receiving his due condemnation from the U.S. Secretary of State.

A pro-Russian fighter takes position at a checkpoint just outside Slovyansk, eastern Ukraine, in early June. Ukraine has accused Russia of supplying pro-Russian separatists within the country with some military gear. Russia denies the accusations. (Andrei Petrov/The Associated Press)

The new Ukrainian president called for his country's national security council to attend an emergency meeting, while declaring Sunday a day of national mourning for the deadliest single incident yet experienced in its Russian-inspired-and-directed armed insurgency.

President Poroshenko had stern words for the head of the country's SBU security service, speaking of "omissions" in measures taken to protect military aircraft from such deadly attacks. "A detailed analysis of the reasons", has been demanded along with the possibility that top-level personnel changes are imminent.


In Kyiv, hundreds of protesters bombarded the Russian Embassy with eggs, overturning parked cars with diplomatic plates, signage nearby characterizing their rage with the phrase: "Russia is a killer."