WilliamM

I have a good friend who is a freelance reporter near Donetsk. He posted several hours ago on Facebook about arriving at the crash site tomorrow (Friday) morning. Good luck. If there was any logic here, I would speculate that the splinter separatist groups are responsible, not Strelkov and Birodai. They are thugs of the first order, but capable of conducting long press conferences (see YouTube) and very occasionally sounding as if they know what they are doing -- whatever the Kremlin tells them.

The major TV news networks and cable are covering the crash non-stop. The Malaysian plane came down in between Donetsk and Luhanak, an area contolled by the separatists. The Ukrainian government has been saying for the last few days that at least one of its planes was shot down by a missile also near the Russian border. The two separatists leaders, Strelkov and Borodai, have stated many times that they are Russian "volunteers" from Moscow. But, there are also separatists, who are pro-Russian and resent Russian leaderships, rather than Eastern Ukraine leadership. If the separatists shot down the Malaysian plane, it would be the culmination of a tricky situation for Putin; he maintained somewhat aloof from the chaos in Eastern Ukraine lately. But, rogue activity was always a possibility with available Russian weapons. Right now there's no proof the plane was shot down!

The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing. Lessing is the oldest person to ever win the Nobel Prize for Literature (2007), but was unable to travel to Stockholm for the award. She's still alive at age 93. Many of her books are about life in Zimbalwe; she is superb on British colonialism.

Ryan & Fredrik