Investigators did not want to delay the questioning and yesterday evening met with a Ukrainian soldier who confirmed that he had left his military unit of his own accord and had passed to the territory of the Russian Federation.
He told the investigators about his last days of service in a unit of Ukrainian air forces. Judging by his behavior and the facts he told the investigators have no doubt about his sincerity and knowledge about the events that had taken place in those military units.
According to the testimony given by the witness, who has been given a pseudonym for security purposes, on 17 July the civilian jet Boeing-777 MN-17 was taken down by a fighter jet SU-25 of the Ukrainian air forces, piloted be Captain Voloshin. The fighter took off from the airfield in Dnepropetrovsk. This was the airfield the witness served at. According to him he saw with his own eyes the Voloshin’s fighter to have been loaded with R-60 air-to-air rockets which are not usually loaded to SU-25 jets. The witness told that there was no need to equip the jet with such armament as the militia do not have any aircrafts.
The witness had noticed that after coming back the jet had no rockets on it and had clearly heard when Voloshin said: “It – the Boeing – was in the wrong place, at the wrong time”.
The facts and information the witness provided without hesitation or confusion assured the investigators that his testimony is truthful, which was also confirmed by a polygraph. That information is extremely vital for the investigators and most importantly it agrees completely with the information the investigators have got from other sources and confirms that the Su-25 was in the air during the Boeing crash. Namely, a number of testimonies of Ukrainian citizens who live near the Boeing crash site state that at the moment of the crash they saw a fighter jet in the air near the Boeing.
This way the witness’s testimony is not the sole, but a very important piece of evidence that the Ukrainian air forces were involved in the crash.
As the witness may be in danger, he will be put under the state witness protection program.
The Investigative Committee is going to gather and analyze all information about the crash. If members of the International Commission that is investigating the crash are really interested in finding the truth and appeal to us we are ready to provide them with all the information we have.
Head of Media Relations V.I. Markin
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