Live Blog: Ukraine In Crisis (Archive)

Reuters: "NATO says images raise suspicions that Russia moved tanks into Ukraine"

Reuters images of the wreckage of the IL-76 Ukrainian army transport plane shot down over Luhansk, killing scores of troops. The men in the photos are identified as rebels. Seems to say a lot about Luhansk that Ukrainian authorities retrieved the bodies then left, allowing separatist gunmen to salvage ammunition and weapons from the scene.

The commander of Ukraine's "Donbas" battalion, a volunteer militia group formed to fight Kremlin-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, says the death of 49 servicemen in Luhansk will not go unanswered.

Writing on Facebook, Semyon Semenchenko added, according to RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, "We won't forget. We won't forgive. Heroes don't die."

Semenchenko went on to blame Ukrainian military leaders for today's early-morning attack, in which pro-Russian separatists from the Luhansk People's Republic used portable rocket launchers to shoot down the plane as it passed over Luhansk. Everyone on board was killed; the burned-out hull of the plane remains surrounded by armed separatists.

"Indirect responsibility for the death of 49 paratroopers is held by the leadership of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. They could not have been unaware that terrorists armed with tanks and an open border would also have MANPADS" -- portable rocket launchers -- "at their disposal. Where was military intelligence looking? Do we even have military intelligence? Where's the analysis of the situation, where's the risk assessment, and who's next?"

Residents tell some hungover guy passed out in their frontyard who appears to have lost his pistol to scram and get back to "liberating Donbas" from the "fascists."