President Barack Obama
The United States began building a case linking pro-Russian separatists to the downing of a passenger jet in Ukraine as a somber President Barack Obama declared the deaths of those on board, including at least one American, an “outrage of unspeakable proportions.”
Obama said the U.S. believes the Malaysia Airlines plane was felled by a surface-to-air missile launched from an area near the Ukraine-Russia border that is controlled by Kremlin-backed separatists. Even as he cautioned that the exact circumstances were still being determined, the president turned his sights on Russia, saying the insurgents would not be capable of carrying out such an attack without Moscow’s support.
“We know that they are heavily armed and they are trained, and we know that that’s not an accident,” Obama said. “That is happening because of Russian support.”
The president spoke shortly after Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, outlined preliminary evidence against Russia and the separatists during an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council.
The American killed in the incident was identified as Quinn Lucas Schansman. Officials said they were still working to confirm whether any other U.S. citizens were on board the plane.
For Obama, the downed plane adds new complexity to U.S. efforts to quell the months-long conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Increasingly stringent economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. and Europe, including a new round of penalties announced a day before the plane was shot down, have done little to change Russian President Vladimir Putin’s approach.
Putin put the blame on Kiev: “This tragedy would not have happened if there were peace on this land, if the military actions had not been renewed in southeast Ukraine.”
“And, certainly, the state over whose territory this occurred bears responsibility for this awful tragedy,” he said. AP
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