Local perspectives in central PA are shedding light on the situation in Eastern Ukraine.
Trey Yingst is a student and journalist with News2Share. Recently, he returned from Eastern Ukraine where he was reporting on the Ukrainian presidential election. He said while the separatists have anti-aircraft missiles and they have taken down cargo planes and Ukrainian military planes, they are small enough to be carried on someone’s shoulder. They would not be big enough to hit a commercial airliner.
It is not clear if the separatists were involved with this crash or who could have supplied them with the surface-to-air-missile. Yingst said many Ukrainians are tense and hoping for outside help to control pro-Russian separatists.
“Before the problem was between Russia and Ukraine,” Yingst said. “Now, the problem is between these pro-Russian separatists and the world. Something is going to have to happen.”
Karl Qualls, a Dickinson College professor, says, “Russia has been supplying the rebels for quite some time. It’s been pretty clear for a number of of weeks they’ve been shooting down Ukraine aircraft. Two already this week, and maybe a third now. So, I think they’re both going to hold off to try to get some investigation in there. I think the international diplomacy is going to heat up very quickly.”
The separatist group denied any involvement in the plane crash, but Ukrainian officials are calling it a “terrorist action.”