to shoot down a ukrainian military aircraft, and instead a passenger jet came crashing to the ground. reporter: what is so worrisome right now, again pentagon officials have been watching this area very closely. and they have noted this sophisticated buk missile system was brought across the border from russia and provided to the separatist it is. the range of the buk missiles, they can fly up to 72,000 feet. what the separatists have been talking about in recent days, now according to this posting on social media, they were targeting ukrainian military cargo planes, like the one that they brought down on monday and it what seems at this point in team #r time because of circumstantial evidence they may have inadvertently targeted
jets in recent days, and so the coincidence of a commercial aircraft coming down in exactly the same area these others were shot down is just what is leading to a lot of this discussion right now, but it is ukrainian interior ministry spokesman who mentioned the bo book, they are quite certain according to the ukrainian officials this missile ross down that airplane. we re having to piece together reports from the ground but certainly the circumstantial evidence at this point in time suggests an introduction in recent days of very sophisticated surface-to-air missiles. you malaysian defense minister ordered the military to get involved, we are still not confirming this airplane was shot down.
the torez region. it is dropping towards the vicinity of the progress mine adding ominously, we did warn you, do not fly in our sky. in recent weeks, ukrainian officials say pro-russian separatists have shot down several ukrainian military aircraft. i was in contact with the deputy foreign minister pointing the finger directly at vladimir putin. he told me russia inspires and arms terrorists. they are murderers. the world must stop putin. that gives you a sign how quickly this can escalate in eastern ukraine. certainly could be a major, major game-changer. this is a huge, huge development. jim, i want you to stand by for a moment. barbara starr is picking up new information. what else are you learning? ing we broke here at the pentagon the news a short time ago that the u.s. now concludes the plane
work. this is not from today. this is something the russian government put out to show the power of this particular missile. you re not watching what happened today but you re watching it take down an aircraft. it strikes the jet, shortly thereafter you have an impact and that fighter jet in this case explodes. if separatists could pull off this kind of an attack with a missile this sophisticated, how concerned should we be? is this a whole new world, especially when you think about something like this could have been, you know, not where it was supposed to be? it really is not a new world. this technology has been around for a while. what we re really looking at is the lack of governed space, the ability of interests to cross over what you and i might define as very distinct borders, and in truth they aren t. in eastern ukraine that s what we would define as uncontrolled, ungoverned. russian separatists not totally
ukrainian warplanes attack in them, and they saw this aircraft in the sky, these undisciplined and ukrainian rebels shot down the innocent passenger jet, i believe. you are to beating this to your own experience in a war zone, but you cannot change the fact they are supplying be sophisticated surface-to-air missiles is widely occurring. the other thing as what the russians will say about this incident. let s get to the white house it may be potential response from there as we have been watching. the bbc reported the russians are denying they had anything to do with it. it is interesting you feel so strongly about this. you think this is incompetence or it was meant take our passenger jet or incompetence?