Ukrainian Security Service releases video claiming rebels confess to downing MH17

Ukraine’s intelligence service claimed Thursday that it intercepted a recording of several separatists and a Russian military intelligence officer conferring about the Malaysia Airlines plane that was shot down.

The recording — an apparent composite of three separate conversations — was broadcast on Russian radio station Ekho Moskvi and published online by the Kyiv Post and also on the Ukrainian Security Service’s website and YouTube page.

The Washington Post could not independently verify the recording or the individuals identified in it. However, three Russian language speakers working for The Washington Post independently verified the English translation used here.

One voice on the tape — identified by the Ukrainian intelligence agency as Igor Bezler, one of the leaders in the pro-Russian separatist movement in eastern Ukraine — says either “we have just shot down a plane” or “they have just down the plane.” (This Russian statement could be translated in either way in the context of this conversation.)

(More here.)