ukrainian interior ministry official is saying that this plane was brought down by a ground to air missile. let's cross over to rory challands now. rory it was the interfax news agency that first reported this plane crash. what more do we know at this stage? >> well, interfax wouldn't tell us the name of the source that had given them off of the information. so a lot of things are still very murky about this crash, but we do know this is going to be a huge game changer for this conflict, the conflict going on at the moment between the ukrainian army and pro-russian separatists. already the finger of blame is starting to be pointed backwards and forwards. the ukrainian government is hinting that it is the rebels. the rebels themselves say not them. we have here from the self proclaimed donetsk people's republic, they say the plane was shot down by the ukrainian side. we simply do not have such air defense systems according to the rebels. our man pads -- this is a type of missile system -- have a firing range of 3,000 to 4,000 meters. that was from the special representative and security cou

immediately after the crash ukrainian interior ministry officials said pro-russian separatists shot down the plane. a ukrainian official claimed the plane was brought down by a buk missile. a buk missile is a soviet-era surface-to-air missile that can reach altitudes of some 70,000 feet. meanwhile, pro-russian rebels deny they shot down the plane. the leader of the separatists said ukrainian armed forces brought the plane down. so right now we have both sides blaming each other. earlier today president obama addressed the evolving situation at an event in delaware. >> obviously, the world is watching reports of a downed passenger jet near the russia-ukraine border and it looks like it may be a terrible tragedy. right now we are working to determine whether there were american citizens onboard. 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 determine what happened and why and as a country our thoughts and prayers are with the fa mily of passengers wherever

in a facebook post, a ukrainian interior ministry official declared the airliner was shot down by rebels using a russian- made sa-17 system. its missiles can reach altitudes of 72,000 feet. just as quickly, the self- proclaimed rebel prime minister of the people's republic of donetsk denied involvement. >> ( translated ): a passenger aircraft has been shot down indeed, shot down by ukrainian air forces. to tell the truth this is a provocation on purpose. in principle this is not the first time for ukraine to shoot down passenger aircrafts, as you know. >> ifill: but ukrainian president petro poroshenko said his military has not fired on any airborne targets, and he called for an international investigation. >> ( translated ): i just finished a conversation with the prime minister of the netherlands. i offered our condolences on behalf of the ukrainian people and invited dutch experts to open an investigation of this act of terrorism. >> ifill: white house officials said president obama learned of the crash from russian president vladimir putin during a phone call on u.s. sanctions agains

the ukrainian interior ministry official saying all 295 people on board are dead, 280 passengers and5 crew members as well. that is what -- the late thaes we have. that's what's come in in the last few minutes. once again, interfax, news agency reporting that the russian accept ra tys claim they have control of the black box. back to you. >> and michelle, so far the amount of information and counterinformation that has come in has been extraordinary. the rebels effectively saying they shot the plane down, some on the russian side have said no we did not, the ukrainians are denying this, however you've had others the donetsk region faction of the ukraine, if you will, claiming responsibility, saying at one point on twitter, whether you believe it or not, that a little bird had fallen out of the sky and that they were to blame. there is a lot of information that is floating around right now, most of it completely unverified. >> that's a great observation, brian. that is absolutely true. that's why we have been very restrained in what we report or at least try to get you some context as

>> reporter: jenna, right now we are hearing from the, from the ukrainian interior ministry where officialsing that it was a bk surface-to-air missile, a -- b u.k. russian surface-to-air missile, brought down the malaysian flight flying over ukraine. what is important to remember in recent days there had been reporters on the ground in the last 24 hours who had seen this very sophisticated russian missile system, enter from russia into the separatist area whereeth thick fighting ukraine wan norses. this buck missile system. can fly range 72,000 feet. a commercial plane malaysia flight 17, reportedly flying 33,000 feet. that is much too high for any soldier fired missile. a sophisticated missile system like the buk missile. can go much higher, 73,000 feet. a ukranian officials are blaming russian surface-to-air missile known as a buk had been brought in from russian territory in recent days according to those reports coming out of ukraine right now. jenna: jennifer, thank you very much. the pentagon spokesman, our pentagon spokesman is saying he seen reports about a downed passenger jet in u

>> well, the claim comes from officials with the ukrainian interior ministry, this is a system they would be familiar with, and we will explain why, when you hear the reference to buk muscle system, it is a medium range service missile that the russians began producing in the mid 1990's. it was a update to what used to be known as the sa 6, and s.a. 11. that the russians had during much of the cold war. particularly in the late 1980's. the buck missle system had a range of 50-kilometers or 20-miles so when you hear reports that the crash site is about 20 miles from russian air space that would still put the aircraft within range of a buk muscle battery. nato officials view the buk system cruise mills and also smart bombs. bombs that are dropped by western aircraft. the buking is on the ground, consistents of seven ground vehicles there is a radar, acquisition type. the time it takes to spot something on radar, is less than five minutes and then once they make the decision to fire, it is only about 22 seconds from that time until the missip is launched. again, while this was made by the ru

of this discussion right now, but it is ukrainian interior ministry spokesman who mentioned the bo book, they are quite certain according to the ukrainian officials this missile ross down that airplane. we're having to piece together reports from the ground but certainly the circumstantial evidence at this point in time suggests an introduction in recent days of very sophisticated surface-to-air missiles. >> you malaysian defense minister ordered the military to get involved, we are still not confirming this airplane was shot down. i'm looking at a report from reuters to say the armed forces are saying they are not involved in the passenger plane being brought down, the presidential press service. what else are you hearing? so putting together bits and pieces of this information, but kimberly was alluded to reports from the ground there. it seems everybody at this point, the defense minister not able to confirm any situation. we're not even confirming the plane was shot down, jennifer. >> you will remember with the previous malaysian airline disaster was very slow confirming that plane had gone missing. it is not unusual in this kind of circumsta

ukrainian army trucks going, down south. when we arrived there were two officials. one from the interior ministry when i asked what was happening. he said tactics from inside. you see arrest til artillery. the army was able to come in and superb separatists out. what happens next? larger cities with more civilians inside. they were telling me that tactics have to change because of that, but he said that operatis separatist attacks were also going to change. >> are they worried? >> reporter: the people we spoke with here, they're happy there is no more fighting going on. they're concerned with what the future is going to be. they're concerned with power, electricity and food. that's why the officials are here to tell them, the people here, that those materials are on the way. they're not here yet. there has been a little bit of humanitarian relief. when you look at bigger cities, donetsk, that's where we know hundreds of separatist fighters are, that will be a different battle, if you will, because there are so many civilians there. the army can't take care of things there like they did here. peop

interior ministry officials in ukraine are saying. malaysia airlines itself says it lost contact with the flight from amsterdam over ukraine while it was in ukrainian air space. the ukrainian presidency has confirmed this crash, and separatists rebels have denied being involved, separatist rebels in eastern ukraine have denied any involvement as well as the ukrainian army. earlier we spoke to pavel, a military expert, and he says it will be extremely difficult to find who was responsible for this crash. >> the plane was flying over a war zone, basically, where there's a continuous fighting between ukrainian forces and russian-backed rebels in the area. there have been planes taken down and helicopters by the rebels before that and recently there was a plane taken down. it was a transport plane which was flying rather high, which may mean that at least that's what ukrainians said that the rebels have acquired not only shoulder-launch anti-aircraft missiles, but more serious missiles that can shoot down planes flying 6, maybe even 10 -- here it was 10 kilometers. of course i believe both sides. all sides in the conflict will say that they have no res

you will see, according to ukraine's interior ministry, the buk anti aircraft launcher, apparently with these two rockets, missing from the truck. ukrainian officials citing this video here as proof that rebels are smugglingel the launcher back to russia to cover up their tracks. and we now have this video of european investigators, this is the first time we're seeing this here on cnn, here they are alivi arriving on the scene and what they are seeing is absolutely shocking. >> what we observed were already bodies starting to partially decompose in the hot sun. we saw a lot of debris. the debris doesn't look like it's been manipulated in any way, but there is lots of it. the crash area is very, very big. but we were only given a very small area to actually monitor. and we were -- greeted almost with hostility. so it wasn't a visit done you said the best conditions, and we hope to continue again tomorrow. >> that interview was just conducted by our own christiane amanpour, one of the spokespeople for this european investigator group. cnn's phil black is on his way to this crash site. and so phil, we now have -- we see the video. these european inves

ukrainian interior ministry reported 500 cases between april and june. abductions have taken place across eastern ukraine in the donetsk region. i asked about the ukrainian government's response to this report. >> so far no officialwas a damming report that raised a lot of concerns on the part of am necessaamnesty international. the bulk was carried out by insurgents and russians fights against the government forces. we know bbc has seen a basement in the town of sloviansk where they held hostages in grim conditions. amnesty were concerned of torture and beatings. they said some instances were stomach-turning. >> is this going to entrench the situation further senator. >> difficult to say. the government is accusing the pro russian separatists of carrying out a terror campaign. it should be said amnesty in addition to saying the political reasons for the abductions, there were also reasons for intimidating the local population. obviously this does not help the situation, but it definitely points to the increasing, on-going and increasing brutality of conflict in eastern ukraine. >> david stern in kiev. >>> germany's foreign minister says the decision to expel the top cia official in berlin was inevitable followin

officially been confirmed at this point by malaysian air. confirmed that the plane is missing. they lost contact. the ukrainian interior ministry crashed and has supplied us with figures on the casualties. ares possible -- they accusing ukrainian rebels of shooting this plane down. it's a human tragedy. a human story. a political story, a diplomatic story. it's also a financial story. let's take you to olivia sterns. the minister saying on his facebook page am accusing rebels of shooting down this malaysian air flight. malaysian airlines has said they have lost contact of this flight . interfax reports that they have found wreckage burning on the ground in ukraine. this is moving markets immediately. we saw a spike in the traditional safe haven assets. cold, oil, gas and britain spiked. for more on how this is shaking the markets, let's bring in the chief options strategist at bar chart.com. describe what you are seeing in terms of market reaction on this news from the interior minister of ukraine. let's hope this is an isolated event that does not have a catastrophic effect on the markets and the big picture. this may be the l