supporters. on july 14th, separatists claimed credit for the downing of a ukrainian military cargo plane. and they claimed credit for the downing of a ukrainian fighter jet. if, indeed, russian-backed separatists were behind this attack an a civilian airliner, they and their backers would have good reason to cover up evidence of their crime. chuck todd, the president had not come out, except for just a brief moment in between his other events yesterday. this was a much more striking appearance by the president trying to get ahead of what has been a devastating series of crises on their plate. it was. but i m glad you played that clip from samantha power, our united states ambassador to the u.n. because what i found striking is that she in some ways used even stronger language pointing the finger at the russians than even the president did. the president seemed to use similar language but offer more
mentality inside the kremlin that if you haven t been sanctioned by now, you don t deserve your position. the public reaction generally speaking has been nonchalant and defiant on the part of kremlin officials and officials in general. privately, it s impossible to know just how worried and pressured they re actually feeling because if they revealed that, it would be political suicide. generally speaking, no one seems to be concerned quite yet with the three waves of u.s. sanctions, joy. but that would certainly change if europe, with all of the hundreds of billions of dollars in deals that it does with russia, if europe truly cracked down, that would be a game changer. that said, jim, are russian officials continuing to distance themselves from the rebels despite reports that russian military have been training and even arming them ahead of the shoot down of the plane? reporter: yes, it s an interesting schizophrenia, i
about the question of the root of this plane. i want to show this new york times map that shows actually the malaysian plane, the active route it was flying. it s an active route used by commercial airliners every day. hours before the crash, russia actually closed four airways near the ukrainian border, including one that would have been of continuation of the route that this plane was flying on. so tony, explain to us what that means in layperson s terms. these navigation routes are global positioning routes. they are high-altitude routes. simply what they are are highways in the sky. if you think of a road network, it s the same thing for airline pilots and general aviation pilots. so what you re not seeing in that new york times map are thetersecting airways, the highways that intersect up in the sky. at any point along those intersections the air traffic
is to blame. and while the early evidence leads us to believe that a surface-to-air missile ultimately destroyed this plane and that it seems it came from separatist-controlled area that have been fueled by russia, we yet don t have all of the facts. before i jump to those conclusions, i want to have all the facts. but i will say this. when the facts are deduced and if they lead to, for example, russian separatists who struck down this plane with the use of very possibly military weaponry from russia, there must be a severe consequence. russia has been in an aggressive posture throughout eastern ukraine after it invaded crimea. i think the national order has been upended by russia. now if the facts lead us to the conclusions that some have come
shortest distance, the shortest route between amsterdam and kuala lumpur and distance is money. there was no expectation that they would be subject to the weapons that were on the ground. everybody s perception was that it might be dangerous, but they have no weapons to reach a slant range of about ten miles or so. they weren t worried about it, but they were taking a calculated risk. this is what happens when you take a calculated risk over a difficult area. i want to show another piece of video we have, which is ukrainian officials are claiming the video we re showing actually shows the missile launcher that was used to bring down the plane being moved, you know, afterward, after the plane was shot down. what do you make of that, colonel jack? does that help investigators to figure out who was responsible? well, first of all, if it really is the one that they purport it to be, it s interesting that it s only got it only has two missiles aboard. that vehicle carries four