smoking field. more video shows billowing black smoke in the sky with streaks of what appears to be white hot material falling to the ground. unconfirm unconfirmed, they reportedly show the wreckage from the crash which left no survivors. amid the images of destruction there are many questions and few answers about just what caused this tragedy. a ukrainian military adviser claims the plane was shot down by pro-russian separatists, hit by a missile fired from the ground. those separatists deny responsibility and a separatist leader andre bergen told the a.p. he was certain it was ukrainian troops who brought the plane down. that is a claim the ukrainian government denies. right now both the state department and the pentagon there is yet no indication as to what caused this crash. white house officials say president obama and russian president vladimir putin spoke about the incident by phone earlier today. this afternoon speaking at an

event on infrastructure, the president said the u.s. is working to determine if americans were among those on board. initial unconfirmed reports say as many as 23 americans may have been on the flight. >> it looks like it may be a terrible tragedy. right now we're working to determine whether there were american citizens on board. upon that is our first priority and i've directed my national security team to stay in close contact with the ukrainian government. the united states will offer any assistance we can to help determine what happened and why, and as a country, our thoughts and prayers are with all of the families of the passengers wherever they call home. >> joining me now is nbc news chief pentagon correspondent jim miklaszewski. mik, can you give us the the la latest on where the pentagon is calling it a terrorist attack. >> they're saying they're

looking for any kind of new intelligence and analyzing the intelligence they already have to figure out just what brought down this airplane. i can tell you the suspicions are heavily leaning to a shootdown by somebody, but nobody here can confirm or will confirm the reports that are coming out of the ukraine. there say news conference with a ukrainian spokesperson in english in which he claimed that ukraine has intercepts of radio conversations between a russian soldier apparently and a russian colonel back across the border claiming that they, in fact, had shot down the malaysian airliner, but none of that is being confirmed here. the u.s. has had intelligence assets over that area pretty much 24/7 during this whole border turmoil and standoff between ukraine and russian forces and in fact, the russians had built up their forces on the

border to now 13,000, we're told by senior d.o.d. official, but there is no indication from anybody here in the building at least that we're talking to that they have a smoking gun, that they have the firm evidence. as one senior official told us, if, in fact, u.s. intelligence does have positive proof that somebody, whether separatist or the russians, shot down that airliner, they aren't sharing that information for now, alex. >> mik, let me ask you one more question as a follow-up. the unconfirmed news that some americans, as many as 23, may have been onboard that flight would certainly change the d.o.d. calculus. have you heard anything else on that front? >> in terms of any kind reaction to this, there is no consideration for any military action, i can tell you that. the president just yesterday slapped new sanctions on the russian government because over the past couple of weeks according to officials here, the

russians have been sending some of these missile launchers, tanks and artillery to the separatists there in ukraine, an indication that not only are they not de-escalating the violence in that region, but they are escalating it, so that is in turn why president obama slapped additional sanctions on the russians, but in terms of any kind of reaction, as a matter of fact, one of the theories among military experts is that, you know, this -- this may have been an accidental shootdown of an airliner. the military experts we're talking to said nobody in their right mind, not even russian separatists or ukrainian separatists would purposely target a civilian aircraft. so it might have been that whoever was on the ground thought they were aiming at a military aircraft. after all, was there a ukrainian

military cargo plane that was shot down only on monday, and we are told by some u.s. officials that that plane appears to have been shot down perhaps by separatists using these buks and missiles. >> nbc news pentagon correspondent jim miklaszewski. thanks for your time and information. malaysian air jet mh17 has crashed near the russian border, the site of recent fierce fighting between the ukrainian military and pro-russian separatists. the jet lost radio contact with ukraine yaen air traffic control at 33,000 feet and it remains unclear on what caused the crash. the pentagon says u.s. cannot confirm reports coming from ukrainian authorities that the plane may have been shot down. all of this comes 24 hours after 24 hours after president obama

announced sanctions against russia. >> hi, alex. great to be here. >> i know it's a busy day. >> it is. >> let's get right to it. we know from the white house, the readout is that president putin mentioned the malaysian air flight crash on his call with the president. can you offer any more specifics on what the contents of that conversation was? >> reporter: i can't really offer additional content there. i can tell you this was happening very quickly this morning, as soon as news report emerged, we made the secretary aware, and i know the white house made the president aware and of course, we've been doing everything possible to determine whether american citizens were on board that plane since then. >> jen, i know earlier today you couldn't give conversation as to whether there were americanses onboard. do you have any update on that? >> i don't have any update. we're working around the clock. every minute we have a team trying to determine whether there were american citizens on board. as soon as we have information

available, we'll make that publicly available. >> we know secretary kerry was perhaps going en route to cairo. are those plans changing at all given the current situation? >> well, he's had his bag packed. he always has his bag packed and ready to go, if he can play a role on the groundworking toward a cease-fire. that's our focus now. we're concerned about the level of civilian casualties and he's been on the phone constantly with the prime minister of egypt and prime minister netanyahu and he's prepared to go so we'll see what happens over the coming days. >> to go back to russia for a minute, we know that vice president biden is in touch with petro poroshenko, is he is touch with the dutch govern am, the ukrainian government. >> we have a fantastic ambassador in ukraine who has been closely in touch with ukrainian authorities on the ground. the secretary's been receiving, of course, updates about what

they're hearing, but he hasn't yet been in touch with russian authorities. that could change in the coming hours or 24 hours, of course. >> let me ask you about yesterday's sanctions announcement. russian president putin called. he said they have driven russian-american relations to a dead end causing very serious damage. would you agree with that? >> well, there's not a magic formula for president putin or the russians to return our relationship to where we think it could be and where it has the potential to be. i think it's important to note that we're still working with russia on issues like the p5 plus one negotiations and preventings iran from creating a nuclear weapon. russia has refused to deescalate. they're continuing to send equipment across the border. there's more that the militants on the ground have to do and we've reached a point where we needed to take additional action and the path and the road remain open to russia. >> just to clarify.

you would not agree, then, that u.s.-russian relations are at a dead end. >> look, i think there are issues that we continue to work with russia on. you saw the effort that the secretary worked with foreign minister lavrov on over the last couple of months to move 100% of declared chemical weapons from syria. you've seen the the ongoing negotiations with iran -- not in iran, i'm sorry, in vienna. we are working in lockstep of the p5 plus 1 and russia is a member of that, we are working with the ukraine and over the sovereignty of the ukraine and over what we think should be the future of the ukraine and that's an issue where we need to take action and we've taken several actions including yesterday. >> breaking news on a day of breaking news, the news that the israeli defense forces have invaded gaza or launched a ground operation in gaza strip. what is the response from the state department on that? >> well, these reports are just coming out. we don't have details on what this means, what it would look like and i can tell you that the secretary is on the phone with prime minister netanyahu right

now as we speak, so, obviously, i haven't received a readout from him on that. our focus on the de-escalation. we're concerned about the civilian casualties with what we saw happen with the four young, inon se innocent palestinian boys was just a tragedy and that's why we'll redouble our efforts with the cease-fire and that's the only way to bring an end to what we're seeing on the ground. jen psaki, thank you so much. i know you have many things to do today. >> great chatting with you. joining me now is "new york times" white house correspondent. peter baker. let's start with russia here. in terms of what this does to ongoing negotiations with russia on a host of different things, you heard jen psaki talk about, the p5, and they're playing a role in syria. how much of an issue do you think this will be moving forward? >> it's a huge issue, obviously, and you heard the president last night when he came out and

announced sanctions. he talked about gaza and he talked about iran and this underscores what a complicated world it is and right now for president obama it is a very complicated situation, interlocking crises and situations that involve russia, iran, syria, iraq and so forth. this plane crash in ukraine today just further inflames an already volatile situation and what the american administration hopes if there is indication that the russians or the separatists that they support were somehow involved it might embolden the europeans to go along with further, tougher actions against russia and isolate vladimir putin and the world. >> you are our -- not inhouse, but russian expert, in terms of who could have carried this out and capabilities. there is a lot of back and forth about who would have been able to be armed with such a thing and then deploy it. is it possible that somehow russian president putin has basically just lost control of rebel forces?

>> certainly, it's possible he had nothing to do with it. it's possible he knew nothing about it. it's possible that even if separatists were involved in doing this that this was equipment that wasn't from russia directly, perhaps captured from ukrainians. we don't know. those are the kinds of questions that are being asked right now inside the obama administration and around europe, of course, and it's hard to -- it's hard to pin blame this early. we have to be careful as we learned in previous incidents. early information is often wrong and we ought to wait for hard facts to come in, but the assumption right now inside the government is that this was probably a shootdown and if they were betting they would tell you they think that the separatists or their russian allies had something to do with it. >> peter, hang with us for one second. i want to bring in "washington post" columnist, julia yafi. let me start with you, the president is in a very, very difficult position, not just

with this issue, a host of other ones and think, an ongoing situation in israel is the last thing that anybody needs on top of that. >> it is changing as we speak. >> exactly. well, in terms of priorities for this white house, if you were looking at the landscape of the last five hours, where does secretary kerry go? >> that's a very good question. i mean, look, the apparent shootdown of a passenger airliner with almost 300 people onboard, you know, i think you have to deal with that especially if you think it was possibly done by a russian separatist, possibly with russian-provided weapons. you have to get some information, but if that's what happened, i think you have to focus on that. how do you ignore the middle east? how do you ignore the fact that israel's air strikes in gaza have turned now into a ground invasion? one of the things i suspect -- well, i know the administration

is trying tos as ascertain is serious is this in terms of its extent and what is its purpose? is it just in northern gaza? is it just to kind of cut off and sort of what they call mow the grass, you know? get rid of the rocket launchers and infrastructure and frankly, some people in the part of gaza where missiles can actually reach tel aviv. >> yeah. >> or is it something bigger? what duration do they have in mind? they've called up all these reservists and are they going to use them? there are so many hours and in the last few hours the whole thing has changed. >> julia, you have covered the ukraine extensively and in terms of how you assess the situation and i know you have a piece in the new republic and you call it a game changer. how are you reading it as it stands at the 4:00 hour? >> well, like peter said, we have to be careful.

we don't know a lot of these facts. some things we do know. we know that in late june a couple of weeks ago the pro-russian separatists did capture a buk missile complex from the ukrainians and there were -- there were braggings from the rebels this morning that they had shot down and the ukrainian military aircraft. there have been rumors online that no components of the plane had been found and it would seem they made a mistake and shot down what looked like a ukrainian military jet and turned out to be this malaysia airlines flight mh17. if they did shoot this down and there were rumors online that the pentagon was saying that the missile had come from russian territory and even if all of that is true it's not clear what the u.s. and europe can do. they can step up sanks and russia still has a veto in the u.n. security council.

so they're probably not going to get a peacekeeping presence on the ground even if they wanted to. you know, nobody has an appetite for boots on the ground. it's not really clear what this does change, actually short of getting the the europeans onboard with more aggressive sanctions on russia. >> peter, i asked jen psaki whether she would characterize it it at a dead end and she seemed hesitant to do that. i think it is interesting that the president and putin had a phone conversation this morning wherein, presumably or according to the white house putin everyone innoned the downing of this aircraft and that's all of the information we got. the president, of course, did not mention that in his remarks on infrastructure this afternoon, but how did you read that readout, if you will some. >> yeah. it was very interesting. the way the readout read it looked like putin mentioned it at the end of the conversation and just among the early reports. they may not have had very much

information either at that time. this phone call clearly was arranged in advance of the plane coming down to talk about the sanctions yesterday and to the broader ukraine situation, president putin, we are told, initiated the call. it's unclear what it would have accomplished. putin complained to the united states and to president obama that they were misreading his intensions and unfairly treating him and so forth, but it is not clear what the actual purpose was because president obama isn't going to retreat on the sanctions at this point. >> eugene, let me just, before we go to break really quickly, john mccain said there will be hell to pay if this plane was shot down by russian military or separatists, the fact that there were 23 americans onboard, domestically -- there will be a great appetite as there always is on the right to litigate this as somehow a failure of the presidency. >> that goes without saying. >> but will there be hell to pay? i think within the republican party, you will see those who

want to be more engaged rather than those who do not want to be engaged. >> after you blame it on president obama, what do we do? this is russia we're dealing with. there is not a suggestion that russia shot down this plane. it could be the separatists and the fact is that russia is influencing them and is inspiring them and is probably arming them in many way, but it's not in entire control of them and it's hard to imagine that any professional military, either the russian or ukrainian would mistake a malaysian passenger airplane for a ukrainian cargo plane or military plane or something like that. so if it's a bunch of yahoos who have connections to putin -- >> how do you get them to -- right. >> how do they pay? >> the new york times, peter baker, thank you so much for your time and thoughts, peter, eugene robbins onand julia yafi, please stay with us.

if you are joining us now, this is the latest on the crash of malaysia air 17. it went down 25 miles from the russian border earlier today. that plane was carrying 295 people, 280 passengers and 15 crew members traveling from amsterdam to kuala lumpur. ukrainian officials say the plane was shot down and president petro poroshenko called the crash an act of terrorism. an adviser to the interior minister says a soviet air launcher hit the plane. both the ukrainian government and pro-russian separatists are denying responsibility for the downed jet. wreckage from the plane has been found near a rebel-held town bolstering the theory that the fuselage broke apart before landing and scattered debris around a very wide area. before the crash he saw a white trail of smoke rising from the ground and seconds later he heard an explosion. today's crash is the second tragedy this year for malaysian airlines and follows the

mysterious disappearance of flight 370 in march which dropped to beijing and still has not been found. we are continue follow the crash of malaysian air mh17. bob haggar is coming up next. you guys mind warming this fella up for me? i'm gonna go back down, i saw some recyclables. make it happen with verizon xlte. find a car service. we've doubled our 4g lte bandwidth in cities coast to coast. thanks! sure. we've got a spike in temperature. so save the day... don't worry, i got this... oh yeah, i see your spaceship's broken. with xlte on largest, most reliable network. get 50% off smartphones like the new lg g3. [ male announcer ]gs the little things we do... can make a big difference. every time you use dawn, you're using a brand that supports wildlife rescue efforts. experts trust dawn... because it's tough on grease yet gentle. ♪ you by my side makes the little things so good ♪ ♪

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tell your doctor your medical history. and find an arthritis treatment for you. visit celebrex.com and ask your doctor about celebrex. for a body in motion. just hours after a five-hour humanitarian cease-fire between israel and hamas ended today israel has officially begun a ground offensive in gaza. in the last hour israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu announced he had, in fact, instructed the military to begin a ground offensive and israeli defense forces tweeted a large idf force has just launched a ground operation in gaza strip, a new phase of operation protective edge has begun. this news of a ground invasion comes after hours of rockets being fired at israel from hamas and a bombardment of gaza by israeli air strikes including a strike that left three children

dead and the shelling of gaza's awafa hospital. over 220 palestinians and one israeli have been killed. joining me now is nbc news chief foreign affairs correspondent andrea mitchell who is of course, host of andrea mitchell reports. thank for joining me. >> you bet. >> we know the cease-fire ended a few hours ago. why do you think netanyahu has decided to escalate this campaign on the same day the cease-fire ended? >> well, apparently, there has been a lot of rocket fire coming from gaza and going both ways. so there's been very little of an interruption. it wasn't really a cease-fire it was a halt of hostilities for humanitarian aid to be brought through those checkpoints and according to the israelis there has been a lot of rocket exchange. there's been independent reporting on that, as well, and this is the most telegraphed ground invasion in history perhaps, because they said they would do it. the tanks have been lined up

there and they called up additional forces last night and their spokespeople have been saying it and they announced it on television and through social media that they were going in to root out those rockets and placements. so there has been some horrific casualties as recently as today, only hours ago, more children died in rocket fire from israel into gaza. they said they were exchanging rocket fire that hamas started it first, but the bottom line is as you point out that we have a number of children who have also died as rocket fire was hailing down on tel aviv and people were seen running from that. this is obviously a situation that calls for a real cease-fire and egypt called for that two days ago. israel accepted it. hamas did not. hamas said they did not get enough in exchange and there was bargaining back and forth. we know, as you've talked to jen psaki earlier in this half hour that john kerry has been involved, but the bottom line is

that nothing is resolved and some time after 10:00 tonight israel time the prime minister announced that for all intents and purposes they were going in. >> andrea, what about egyptian-led peace talks effectively? they failed to reach an agreement between israel and hamas. do you think there is hope that the diplomacy will be led effectively and ultimately by egypt? >> egypt is not the best no gosch yart in this case, because the new government, the al sissi government is a devout enemy of hamas. in contrast to 2012 when egypt did negotiate with the assistance of hillary clinton, a cease-fire in a similar situation of hostilities egypt was led by morsi and the muslim brotherhood who were the protectors and defenders and some would say suppliers of hamas. so the fact that the situation on the the ground has changed so dramatically with the change of government in egypt has made egypt no longer the interlo

cuter for decades and now turkey and qatar were trying to get involved on behalf of hamas because they have better relations with hamas, at least al sadr does, but that's what egypt was resisting. so it is very, very complicated. mahmoud abbas, abu mazen, the leader of the palestinian fatah contingent, the palestinian authority was in cairo trying to negotiate something, but hamas leaders have been exiled from cairo, kicked out by the al sissi government so it is unclear whether hamas was actually involved in those negotiations. can i update you in just a moment? >> please do. >> i just got off the phone with a good source in the u.s. intelligence community denying a report posted in "the wall street journal" that we know there was a surface-to-air missile involved in the takedown of the malaysian airliner.

this is certainly that the indicators are, but nothing firmly confirmed. we are not there yet, so they are circling as michael leiter and other experts have been describing it, checking with the g geospacial agency, and checking what signals intelligence would show, and checking what any kind of thermal signature there might have been from a missile. the indicators are it was a surface-to-air missile, we can confirm that, but it is not finally confirmed, but it certainly was an indication according to dianne feinstein after the intelligence briefing today that something blew up this airplane because of the nature of the debris field. they're moving to that conclusion. >> an important development. andry a eugenebiinson is on set with me and he has a question. >> back to israel and palestine. it seems as though we've seen

this movie before. is there anything so different about this -- this blowup, this israeli incursion that's particularly dangerous at this moment or is this like other incursions we've seen before? >> well, it's similar in that it's asymmetric, but there are a couple of differences. on the hamas side, hamas is politically much weaker because it doesn't have its ally in egypt any longer and because, as you know, assad certainly in syria is preoccupied. iran is very busy with nuclear negotiations, the whole geography -- political geography has changed and hamas now has, it has enemies in the persian gufrl, gulf, as you know who are i having vigorously preoccupied elsewhere and do not want to

help hamas, and it doesn't have the political strength when egypt had the muslim brotherhood powerfully in cairo. the difference also is that hamas is better armed. those missiles are longer range and they're reaching more of israel. so two-thirds of israel's population is now covered by the missiles that are rocketing out of gaza. that said, the asymmetry is certainly more stark because the air defenses, that iron dome system is working much greater than it has with greater accuracy. so we're seeing the casualties on one side so outweighing the casualties on the other. the other thing is i think israel may finally be wanting to root out those rocket and place ams. they don't have the intelligence they used to have on the ground because they withdrew from gaza, as we know so they don't have the information from where the rockets are placed and so they are misfiring and basically, they're not hitting targets as accurately as they may have in

the past. they're hitting more civilian casualties, and at the same time we know from the u.n. that there were some rockets found in a u.n. school and the u.n. objected very strongly to the hamas leaders about that today. >> an important development, rockets found in a vacated school, it's worth mentioning. andrea mitchell, thank you for your time. very busy news day. >> joining me now is nbc news' martin fletcher. the u.s. is estimating that 75% of palestinian casuall casualti civilian. how likely is the number toesque escalate given this ground invasion. >> reporter: it will be much harder to avoid civilians because they'll be in the way. it's most likely that civilian casualty death toll may mount and quite rapidly. we aren't sure yet, this is a

very large, israeli military incursion into gaza. they're operating, we are told across the whole of the gaza strip. i believe that means along the coast from the north down to the central region down to the south. so there's a large israeli army movement there. there's a lot of rocketing and very, very severe rocketing going on in defense of the ground forces that are moving in and there's likely to be great civilian casualties. the one question you have dealt with andrea so far, why is israel doing this? what do they want to achieve? the clear goal that the government expressed in this operation is they want to take out that network of tunnels that hamas has built and other islamic militant organizations have built leading from gaza into israel. that is the goal of this operation in the short term,a the least. to destroy as many of those as possible and there could possibly be hundreds of these

tunnels. it is very easy to build tunnels in this area, it's just a sandy area. some are a kilometer long and very sophisticated and very well built with electricity and concrete walls. they pose a great threat to israel and we saw that this morning when the israeli army released pictures of 13 palestinians who had gone through a tunnel, emerged inside israel and the israelis said about to attack an israeli settlement when they were spotted by israeli intelligence and they were bombed in the entrance to the tunnel. it it appears they got away and fled back into gaza, but that appears to be the main goal of the operation in the short term to destroy the tunnels and the good news about that if you want to put it in this way, in terms of the civilian casualties is those tunnels are along the borders where there's light population. there will be a severe operation inside gaza that could last the israelis 10 to 14 days just to clear out the tunnels, but at least the population is very sparse along the border.

we don't know if they'll go beyond the the border area into gaza proper. the betting is probably not because of what you asked about the civilian casualties. israel does not to avoid them, but feels the need to go in at this stage. >> martin fletcher, thank you so much for your time. stay safe. >> the white house confirmed this afternoon that russian president vladimir putin informed president obama of malaysia flight 17, after the u.s. announced new sanctions against russia. former ambassador to russia michael scherer from time magazine and julia yafi means what today's crash means for diplomacy coming up next. i don't just make things for a living i take pride in them. so when my moderate to severe chronic plaque psoriasis was also on display, i'd had it.

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ukrainian officials this afternoon continue to stand by their claim that malaysia airlines flight 17, a civilian airliner carrying 295 people may have been shot down by a russian plane. this is the third time this week and the second time today that

ukrainian officials have asserted that russia is responsible for the downing of a plane and this comes one day after the u.s. announced a new round of sanctions, the toughest yet. they target russia's largest financial, energy and defense companies. they restrict their access to american markets and they do not allow for any new deals and do not provide for any new debt to be incurred for longer than 90 days. describing the new round of sanctions one official said if it doesn't cripple them t bleeds them pretty hard. russian president vladimir putin described u.s. foreign policy as aggressive and unprofessional and said the latest sanctions would cause very serious damage to russian-american relations. president obama reportedly spoke with putin earlier this morning about the new sanctions. according to the white house official at the end of the call, putin noted reports of the downed passenger jet near the border. the u.n. security council plans to hold an emergency meeting on

ukraine. julia yafi and washington bureau chief for "time," and former ambassador to russia and eugene robinson from woet t robinson from "the washington post." in terms of the sanctions announced yesterday, do they bleed the russians hard? you know how well sanctions have affected the russian economy. how much more painful are these? >> it's just another turn of the screw or another crank of the handle, as it were. they've been bleeding the russians financially for quite a while now and putin came out and said back in may that the sanctions have had an effect and that russian companies are having trouble finding access to financial resources abroad. the problem is that russian companies don't have access to a big pool of financing. they have to go outside russia to find it and with each subsequent round of sanctions, even for companies or banks who

are not on this list it it becomes harder and harder because think about it, even if you're a european bank, lending to this company you never know if they're going to be on the next wave of sanctions coming out of the u.s. so they've had a very chilling effect on the financing that russia is -- russian companies are able to get abroad. >> ambassador mcfall, i know we have you on the phone. given what julia said about the sanctions and given what president putin has said about our diplomat ic relations being at a dead end, the last time a flight was shot down over russian airspace was in 1983 and that was korean air flight 007, it dramatically increased tensions between america and russia. do you think that the same fallout will be -- there could be the same fallout in this current situation? >> well, of course, we don't know all of the facts about what happened, but if it turns out to be true, that this plain was shot down by the rebels, the

so-called rebels or with russian weapons, absolutely. already relations have gotten to a place that i can't remember -- i think you have to go back 30 or 40 years to remember a time when our bilateral relationship has been so confrontational. this just moves it in a much more, a deeper direction that way. and let's remember, you know, this did not have to happen. this is happening because of russian military interference in eastern ukraine. again, if what we know, what we think we know is confirmed to be true, we don't exactly know what happened just yet. >> michael sheerer, i think a lot of us, there have been so many international complications that captured the media cycle. the ukraine in the last month, president putin has put 12,000 russian troops at the border which is up from just a thousand a month ago. there has been a dramatic

escalation. certainly the white house has been monitoring that and i thought it was interesting that yesterday the president chose to announce sanctions when everyone was expecting him to say something about israel or any of the other places in the world r where there has been dramatic tension. your read from the white house? >> and they specifically cited the movement of heavy weaponry across the border as one of the reasons for sanctions and this comes after, of course, president putin has talked about relieving pressure on the border several times and it's hard to know what is happening there and if this does come out to be something that came from the separatists with either stolen or russian hardware that took down this plane, it will clearly be bad news for putin and not just because of relationships with the united states, but because of relationships with europe. this was a plane that originated in europe and presumably there were europeans on the plane and the negotiations over these sanctions, we've been working hard with the europeans to push

them further. >> michael, i'm sorry, i have to interrupt you because malaysia airlines is holding a press conference to discuss the crash of flight 17. let's listen in. >> all possible care will be provided to the next of kin. the government of malaysia is dispatching a special flight to kiev carrying a special malaysia disaster assistance and rescue team as well as a medical team. according to information provided by kiev air traffic control the location of the plane's emergency locator beacon is 48 degrees, seven minutes and

23 seconds north and 38 degrees, 31 minutes and 33 seconds east. the ukrainian authorities believe that the plane was shot down. at this stage, however, malaysia is unable to verify the cause of this tragedy, but we must and we will find out precisely what happened to this flight. no stone will be left unturned. if it transpiers that the plane was indeed shot down we insist that the perpetrators must swiftly be brought to justice.

emergency operation centers have been established in the last few hours. malaysian officials have been in constant contact with their counterparts in the ukraine and elsewhere, and i will be speaking to a number of world lead e leade leaders over the coming hours. i've had several conversations with the prime minister of the netherlands. i have also spoken to the president of ukraine. he has pledged that there will be a full and independent investigation and malaysian officials will be invited to take part. the ukrainian president also confirmed that his government

will negotiate with rebels in the east of the country in order to establish a humanitarian corridor to the crash site. just now i received a call from president obama. he and i both agree that the investigation must not behinderbehind e hindered in any way and an international team must have full access to the crash site and no one should interfere with the area or move any debris including the black box. this is a tragic day in what has already been a tragic year for malaysia. as we work to understand what

happened, our thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of those onboard the flight. i cannot imagine what they must be going through at this painful time. the flight's passengers and crew came from many different countries, but today, regardless of nationality, we are all united in grief. thank you. >> that was the prime minister of malaysia speaking about the crash of flight 17 today in eastern ukraine. joining me now is retired nbc news correspondent and aviation specialist bob hagar. bob, let me ask you first just about the investigation itself that will inevitably unfold here. the malaysian prime minister said they have the location of

the emergency beacon and he gave specific coordinates. does that mean they have a good idea of where the black boxes are and what do you think this portends in terms of the investigation itself? i would imagine the malaysians, the dutch and everyone else that had a citizen on that plane would not be content to let ukrainian authorities or russian authorities handle the investigation. >> so i think they will know exactly where the black boxes are. since the wreckage is on the ground, we're not talking another situation like this malaysian plane at sea where they have no idea where to look for the black boxes, so they're there and there might be a race to get to on them first. i remember after the soviet union infamously shot down a korean airlines 747 back in 1982 there was this huge race to get to the scene of the black boxes first. it was in the ocean well off the shore of japan, as it turned out and the americans and soviets were both race racing to get to

the black boxes and the soviets didn't want us to get to the black boxes and have an idea of how brutally they shot down the plane. the soviets got the plaqblack b and it wasn't until years later after the breakup of the soviet union. and we'd intercepted the conversations that shot down the liner and we knew from the conversations on the air that the russians had indeed purposely shot it down. so i think presuming they have good access to the wreckage, they will get black boxes. they'll get other things pretty quickly and you get to the immediate question of was it indeed shot down which shouldn't be hard to prove. >> we are getting new news from jim miklaszewski who were told that the malaysian was shot down by a surface-to-air missile. the conclusion is based on intelligence resources available to u.s. intelligence in the

military. they do not know who launched that surface-to-air missile. i want to go to white house correspondent kristen welker. give me a sense of what is going on at the white house. it's interesting that the president continued on with his infrastructure speech given all of the international news breaking today from the morning onwards. >> reporter: i think that's a fair point. i can tell you that behind the scenes here, alex, they have been in meetings trying to reach out to their counterparts in ukraine as president obama directed. he made that point when he did address this in delaware at that previously scheduled event earlier today. the president also saying that the top priority right now is to determine if there were u.s. citizens onboard that flight and he made the point that the u.s. is offering assistance. vice president joe biden just speaking at an event in detroit reiterated what we are hearing from jim miklaszewski that the plane was shot down and the

other remarks is that ukraine has accepted the united states' offer of assistance. here's what the vice president said he said, quote, i offered president poroshenko the help of our expertise, our national transportation safety group and other experts in the community. he accepted that help and they will be on their way rapidly to see if we can get to the bottom of this. alex, that assistance is going to be focused on determining exactly what brought that plane down. i can tell you that the senate intelligence committee was just briefed on capitol hill by the intelligence community. senator dianne feinstein emerging from that briefing saying it was incredibly useful saying there are still a lot of questions about what brought that plane down, but if indeed there is a link to russia she said that would be incredibly concerning. we heard similar comments from senator john mccain earlier today when he was speaking to andrea mitchell. he said if there was a russia link there would be, quote, hell to pay as you've been reporting

all afternoon, this comes less than 24 hours after president obama announced the stiffest round of sanctions yet again. st russia. >> thank you, kristin. i want to go to michael from "time" magazine. we have news that vice president biden is confirming that the plane was shot down and suggested there may have been americans on board. what is interesting beyond that news, vice president biden has been the chief interlocutor between the americans and ukrainians. what role do you think he'll be playing back and forth? >> he's clearly the white house point person and he's been there three or four times in the past few months and recently for the president's inauguration in the ukraine. he's very close to the country and has represented us quite well there. i think he will be central to whatever they do. >> eugene, you heard kristen

kellker talki welker, that if russians were involved it would be depply distressing. i wonder what this does to the rhetoric around russia and the united states, if 23 american civilians have been killed in an act, whether purposeful or not of aggression and the russians are implicated in some way, one can can imagine that, indeed, a price will be extracted. it is unclear what more can be done diplomatically or without bloodshed. >> the rhetoric goes sky high, right? in practice, what's the next step in what do you do? how do you make russia pay hell if indeed russia or it was the russian-inspired and funded and directed rebels who shot down this plane? so there are -- there are, you know, what would amount to death penalty sanctions. there are really, really tougher sectoral sanctions that you can go to, but sanctions don't

sound -- that sounds like a namby pamby response to murdering 300 people. yet, there are obvious limits as to what you can do to russia. i mean, let's just be honest. it's one of the countries that you can't invade. you can't -- >> nor certainly is there an american appetite for that. >> but we can cost russia a lot of its economy, basically and its future economic growth. >> ambassador mcfaul. i believe we still have you on the phone, from your time in rush a what do you imagine putin is doing at this moment if, in fact, this was a single act on the part of the separatists that it was not under the direction of russians. how will he extract his own punishment -- the punishment from the rebels? >> well, he's got two responses, right? one is to distance himself from the rebels, and that has been

happening, by the way, from time to time over the last couple of weeks and that would be one strategy he has to say, look, we had nothing to do with it. even though, let's be clear, you just don't go buy a surface-to-air missile in the marketplace in donetsk and it it takes a lot of training to use these missiles, too. so, rusrussia, if indeed has confirmed what happened will be up mri kated and that is one strategy and the other is to say we're in a confrontation and then, of course, the president and the rest of europe and the world, by the way, this is an international tragedy, not just an american or european or malaysian tragedy, has to respond, and i think, you know, they started with four companies yesterday. well that list could be expanded to 40 and that would make it hurt for russia. >> bob ha dpshgsgar, to go back

flight and the crash itself, sabrina who reports for "the new york times" and was one of the first reporter on location at the crash reports for the times online, many of the bodies strewn about in the smolderring wreckage were largely intact indicating that the plane had made a somewhat controlled landing. does that sound correct to you? >> well, that could be because we don't know if it was hit by a surface-to-air missile, indeed, how catastrophic that hit would have been and to what extent the pilot may have been able to exercise a little control on the plane and keep it unable from crashing and might have been able to bring it in at some angle of descent where the bodies would appear that way. i remember there was one other case where a big passenger jet was accidentally shot down under -- close to wartime conditions, but the u.s. navy shot down an iranian airbus over

the persian gulf and that was back in 1988, but it was almost at a cruise altitude and the iranians played over and over again the footage they had of the bodies that had fallen from that plane, it came right down from altitude and the -- the velocity of the fall stripped the clothing off all of the people. you saw these naked bodies in the persian gulf floating around. it was gruesome, horrible footage and it served the iranians well for their own propaganda purposes, but that again was a tragic incident that may be somewhat like what happened here. >> ambassador mcfaul, what is striking to me is, i mean, as you said, we have not seen a deterioration in u.s.-russian relations like this in decades and all of the u.s.-russia dynamics aside, russia is planning to reopen a spying post in cuba. according to "the new york times" there is a german spy that has complicated matters

between the u.s. and germany, it feels like our relations with the continent and with russia have been rewound to the reagan era. >> or worse. yes, it is. we are in a different dynamic with russia that i think will be with us for years, if not decades to come and this horrible tragedy today will just accelerate that kind of confrontational relationship. i just don't see a way to get things back on track given all that's happened and given what russia has done in ukraine, and i want to emphasize that. the confrontation is not that in my view, president obama has done to russia. this is because of what putin has decided to do vis-a-vis ukraine and the west. we have to leave it there. eugene robinson, and ambassador mcfaul, thank you all for your time and thoughts. once again, here is the latest on two major developing stories

overseas. upon just hours after a five-hour humanitarian cease-fire between israel and hamas ended today, israel has officially begun a ground offensive in gaza. in the last hour israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu announced he had, in fact, instructed the military to begin a grounds offensive. israeli defense forces tweeted that a large ivf force has just launched a ground operation in the gaza strip, a new phase of operation protective edge has begun. meanwhile, on the other story of the day, the crash of malays lk flight 17. it was carrying 295 people, 280 passengers and 15 crew from amsterdam to kuala lumpur. the airliner was shot down by a surface-to-air missile. vice president joe biden said the plane was shot at an event -- vice president joe

biden in detroit this hour said that the plane was shot down. ukrainian president petro poroshenko called the crash an act of terrorism. an adviser to ukraine's interior minister said a soviet-era missile launcher hit the plane while it was flying at 33,000 feet. pro-russian separatists are denying responsibility for the jet. the defense ministers there is no confirm egg the plane was shot down. a lot of mixed messages today. today's crash is the second tragedy this year for malaysia airlines. that is all for now and i'll see you tomorrow. "the ed show" is up next. good evening, americans, welcome to the ed show live from washington, d.c., we start with break news tonight. u.s. officials have now confirmed a surface-to-air missile shot down a malaysian airliner in ukraine. it's not clear if the missile was fired by separatists in