Russia admitted that no Ukrainian aircraft was near MH17 when it was shot down
The Russian Ministry of Defense has denied its own statements about the presence of a Ukrainian Armed Forces aircraft near the Boeing 777 at the moment of crash. On September 26, the chief spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Defense, Igor Konashenkov, and the deputy chief designer of the Utes-T air route radar, Viktor Meshcheryakov, provided new information about the plane crash at the briefing.
According to Meshcheryakov, no airborne side objects were recorded by radar near the Malaysian airliner. “The only exceptions are two civil aircrafts with numbers 1775 and 4722. The first aircraft appeared near the Boeing 777 long before the plane crashed, and the second aircraft was at a distance of over 30 km from it. There were no side objects near the Malaysian airliner before its destruction,” the deputy chief designer said.
Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Defense stated on July 21, 2014 that objective data showed a Ukrainian Armed Forces aircraft, allegedly an Su-25, gaining altitude and moving upwards towards the Malaysian Boeing 777. Yesterday, that statement from the Russian Ministry of Defense, that the passenger aircraft deviated to the north from the established corridor, was refuted.
The radar data, provided by Meshcheryakov, show that the route remained unchanged. Yesterday's briefing claimed that if the aircraft was shot down by a missile from the territory controlled by separatists, then Russian radar would have record it.
At the same time, its technical capabilities don’t allow a conclusion on whether the missile was launched from the territories that are to the south and to the west of the scene of crash. On September 28, the Netherlands Public Prosecutor’s Office will report findings regarding what weapon was used to shoot down the Boeing 777 and from which region of the Donbas the missile was launched.