Malaysia jet one of 3 plane crashes in Ukraine this week: What we know

The Malaysia Airlines passenger jet that crashed Thursday with 298 people on board was the third plane to go down in Ukraine this week, according to Ukrainian officials.

Here is a quick breakdown of the three incidents, all of which Ukrainian officials have said were the result of the aircraft being shot down.

On Thursday afternoon, sources told the Los Angeles Times that U.S. intelligence officials had confirmed a surface-to-air missile also resulted in the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.

On Monday, a Ukrainian AN-26 military transport crashed in the separatist stronghold of Luhansk on the Russian border. The plane, according to Ukrainian Defense Minister Valeriy Heletei, was brought down by a Russian missile.

Heletei told Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenk the plane was “hit by another, more powerful missile that was probably used from the territory of the Russian Federation,” the Ukrinform news agency said, citing the presidential press service.

Two members of the transport plane’s crew were taken prisoner by militants and the fate of the other six people on board remained unknown, Vladislav Seleznev, a government spokesman told The Times.

“The investigation is over,” Ukraine Security Service chief Valentin Nalivaychenko said in televised remarks this week. “We have irrefutable proof which will be first reported to the president and then published.”

Then on Wednesday, Ukrainian officials accused Russians of shooting down a Ukrainian Su-25 jet over the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

According to Andrey Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s National Security Council, the Su-25 jet was struck by a missile from a Russian Federation armed forces plane. The pilot ejected safely and was rescued, Lysenko said.

On Thursday, Ukrainian officials said the crash of a Boeing 777-200ER carrying 298 passengers and crew members en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, was the result of the plane being shot down.

An advisor to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said Malaysia Airlines MH17, which crashed near the city of Donetsk, was downed by a ground-to-air missile over territory controlled by pro-Russia militants.

The crashes have increased tension between Ukraine and Russia as Ukrainian troops continue their campaign against pro-Russia insurgents in the country’s east.

“In recent days, it is already the third tragic accident after the downing of planes of the Ukrainian armed forces An-26 and Su-25 from the Russian territory,” Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said in a statement. “We do not exclude that the given plane was also shot down and emphasize that the armed forces of Ukraine didn’t commit any actions to strike the targets in the air.”

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