Before the loss of the passenger jet Thursday, fighting in eastern Ukraine had claimed at least 500 lives in the four months since Russia seized and annexed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, inspiring the separatists now occupying much of Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The plane, with the tail number 9M-MRD, is the same aircraft that was... (Associated Press) 
 
 Passenger wait at the departure hall at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, in Sepang, Malaysia, Friday, July 18, 2014. Malaysia Airlines said it lost contact with Flight MH17 over Ukrainian airspace... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this photo taken with a mobile phone provided by Andrei Kashtanov, smoke rises from where a Malaysia Airlines commercial plane crashed in eastern Ukraine, Thursday, July 17, 2014. Malaysia Airlines... (Associated Press) 
 
 As plumes of black smoke rose up near a rebel-held village of Grabovo in eastern Ukraine, an Associated Press journalist counted at least 22 bodies at the crash site 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Russian border. U.S. intelligence sources said tracking data from spy satellites and radar confirmed that the Boeing 777 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was hit in midair, but they couldn't immediately determine where the missile was launched. Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to the Interior Ministry, said Russia had recently supplied mobile missile systems to the separatists that are capable of taking down a plane at that altitude. Ukrainian officials said that Russia had recently supplied the separatists with the mobile Buk surface-to-air launching system, and that the military had not fired any antiaircraft missiles during the conflict with the separatists, which began in mid-April. A launcher similar to the Buk missile system was seen by Associated Press journalists earlier Thursday near the eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne, which is held by the rebels. It hasn't solved the mystery of what happened to Flight 370, which disappeared on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March. It has not been found, but the search has been concentrated in the Indian Ocean far west of Australia. On Wednesday evening, a Ukrainian fighter jet was shot down by an air-to-air missile from a Russian plane, Ukrainian authorities said Thursday, adding to what Kiev says is mounting evidence that Moscow is directly supporting the separatist insurgents. Shortly after the airliner went down, the former Russian special forces officer commanding the separatists in eastern Ukraine claimed responsibility for shooting down an AN-26 Ukrainian military transport plane.
– A Malaysia Airlines passenger plane crashed in Ukraine this morning, and all 283 passengers and 15 crew are feared dead, reports Reuters. A Ukrainian interior ministry official says the Boeing 777 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile, though it's too early to confirm the claim. (US intelligence agrees that a missile is to blame.) The plane, which originated in Amsterdam and was bound for Kuala Lumpur, was flying at 33,000 feet when it "began to drop; afterwards it was found burning on the ground on Ukrainian territory," a witness tells Interfax. It came down over territory held by separatists about 25 miles short of the Russian border, near the city of Donetsk, reports the LA Times. The region has seen fierce fighting in recent days. Immediately afterward, Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko said his troops "did not take action against any airborne targets," and pro-Russian separatists also denied responsibility. The plane appeared to have broken apart before hitting the ground, reports the AP, with one of its reporters counting at least 22 bodies at the crash site. President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone about the disaster, though no details about the discussion were immediately released. Malaysia Airlines, still reeling from the disappearance of another passenger jet, confirmed via Twitter that it "has lost contact of MH17 from Amsterdam. The last known position was over Ukrainian airspace." The airline's initial statement is here.