AP joining in the fray ...
By Yuras Karmanau  and Peter Leonard

SNIZHNE, Ukraine (AP) - It was lunchtime when a tracked launcher with four SA-11 surface-to-air missiles rolled into town and parked on Karapetyan Street. Fifteen hundred miles (2,400 kilometers) to the west, passengers were checking in for Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.

The vehicles stopped in front of journalists from The Associated Press. A man wearing unfamiliar fatigues, speaking with a distinctive Russian accent, checked to make sure they weren't filming. The convoy then moved on, destination unknown in the heart of eastern Ukraine's pro-Russia rebellion.

Sergei Kavtaradze, a spokesman for rebel leader Alexander Borodai, repeated to the AP on Friday that no rebel units had weapons capable of shooting that high, and said any suggestions to the contrary are part of an information war aimed at undermining the insurgents' cause.

Nevertheless, the denials are increasingly challenged by accounts of residents, the observations of journalists on the ground, and the statements of one rebel official. The Ukrainian government has also provided purported communications intercepts that it says show rebel involvement in the shoot-down.

A highly placed rebel, speaking to the AP this week, admitted that rebels were responsible. He said a unit based in the hometown of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, made up of both Russians and Ukrainians, was involved in the firing of an SA-11 from near Snizhne. The rebel, who has direct access to the inner circle of the insurgent leadership in Donetsk, said that he could not be named because he was contradicting the rebels' official line.

Speaking with a distinctive Russian accent! Damn, why not? It's Eastern Ukraine and everyone is Russian-speaking, you don't fool me. Sorry, no photo this time of me sitting on a SA-11 launcher. I'm from AP and we don't sneak photos deep in rebel territory. The rebel had to remain 'unnamed' so I can depend on the same source again.

PS It's clear from which side AP correspondent Yuras Karmanau is reporting!

Great luck, Yuras was there at Maidan Independence square:

70 protesters killed, 500 wounded in Kiev, medic says

AP EDITOR'S NOTE -- Yuras Karmanau has covered Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and other ex-Soviet nations for The Associated Press since 2000. He was among the first journalists to witness the carnage in Kiev on Thursday [Feb. 20, 2014] and describes the horrific scene.

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AP reporter Yuras Karmanau poses for a photo on Independence Square, Kiev.

I was there!

AP reporter Yuras Karmanau poses for a photo in front of a stage on the Independence Square, the epicenter of the country's current unrest in Kiev, Ukraine, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2014. Karmanau reported on Thursday's violence in Kiev that left dozens of people killed and hundreds wounded, the bloodiest day in Ukraine's post-Soviet history. (AP Photo/Sergei Chuzavkov)

Yuras Karmanau from Belarus is listed as "Independent Writing and Editing Professional." His writing has been published by the Times of Israel and The Scotsman.

Global Warming - distance between America and Europe is steadily increasing.