 Story highlights Observers say Putin is under pressure at home and abroad 
 
 U.S. officials: Russian troops moving closer to Ukrainian border 
 
 Ukrainian security council spokesman says missiles may have been fired from Russia 
 
 The shootdown comes six days after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was brought down 
 
 Were the missiles that shot down two Ukrainian military planes on Wednesday fired from the Russian side of the border? And Ukrainian officials claimed the missiles that hit them might have been fired from inside Russia. Regardless, the fact that the jets were brought down six days after a suspected separatist-fired missile felled Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 stoked fear of a deteriorating military situation. In the days after the airliner was shot down, U.S. intelligence satellites also recorded an increase in the number of military vehicles at a Russian base near Rostov-on-Don, a city about 100 miles east of the Ukrainian border, the official said. But the officials said it's not known if any of those people were associated with the shoot-down of MH17. “They were downed not by terrorists,” Andriy Lysenko, spokesman for the National Security and Defense Council, told reporters in Kiev on Wednesday afternoon, using the government's term for the separatists. Putin under pressure 
 
 It's unclear whether Wednesday's shootdown was the work of pro-Russian rebels inside Ukraine, or Russian forces themselves -- and whether Russian President Vladimir Putin knew about or approved the operation. Ukraine: Pilots ejected after planes were hit 
 
 An air defense system shot down the Ukrainian jets Wednesday after the pilots completed a task in Dmytrivka, a village in Ukraine's Donetsk region near the border with Russia, the Ukrainian military's press office said. Igor Korotchenko, a Russian military analyst close to the Defense Ministry, told The Times that “the Russian military had nothing to do with the downing of two Sukhoi jets in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday,” adding that he believed the jets “were shot down by local self-defense forces who used portable antiaircraft missiles.” 
 
 Sergei Kavtaradze, an aide to Oleksandr Boroday, one of the self-proclaimed leaders of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, told CNN that separatists hit the planes. Each said the planes were downed by shoulder-fired missile, but if the planes were flying at 17,000 feet, they would have been far beyond the reach of the so-called man-portable systems. News of the jets' downing Wednesday comes six days after the deadly crash of the civilian passenger plane Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine. Two Ukrainian fighter jets were shot down in contested airspace near the Russian border Wednesday as tension between the two countries increased a week after a missile struck a passenger jet, killing all 298 people onboard. But on Wednesday, battles raged in a number of cities in eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk region after several days of fighting in the center of the separatist stronghold of Donetsk. Hans Docter, a representative from the Dutch government, noted solemnly of the victims, “Today, your journey home begins.” 
 
 As the planes landed at Amsterdam’s Eindhoven Airport, a military trumpet sounded in tribute as Prime Minister Mark Rutte and members of the Dutch royal family gathered. As of Wednesday afternoon, U.S. intelligence agencies said they had not confirmed the Ukrainian government’s claim that the missiles had come from Russia.
– Two Ukrainian military fighter jets have been shot down in the east, the country's Defense Ministry is claiming. The Sukhoi-25 fighters were shot down today at 6:30am Eastern (1:30pm local time) over an area called Savur Mogila. Defense Ministry spokesman Oleksiy Dmitrashkovsky says the planes may have been carrying up to two crew members each. The government says the pilots of the planes ejected, though their location and condition are not currently known, reports the Los Angeles Times. CNN notes that the ministry also believes an air defense system shot the planes down. Ukraine is expected to hold a military briefing later today.