Pro-Russian Rebels Probably Shot Down Malaysian Airlines MH17 Thinking It Was Military AN-26

Separatist leader Igor Strelkov reportedly posted a statement on Russia's largest social network that referred to an surface to air missile action that lead to a downed plane in Eastern Ukraine. The same area where the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down on Thursday morning.

 Business Insider reports that the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center shared and translated a screenshot of Strelkov's comment, shown below, on Facebook.

Strelkov, also known as Girkin, posted Thursday at 9:50 a.m. EST on VKontakte, Russia's version of Facebook. Most notably, he wrote, "We have warned them — not to fly in 'our sky.'"

Strelkov referenced that the separatists shot down "AN-26," a Ukrainian military transport plane. He put that crash somewhere near a mine called "Progress," located in Torez, the same city where the Malaysia passenger plane reportedly crashed.

Thus, the Crisis center noted the terrorists likely mistook flight MH 17 for the Ukrainian aircraft. Leaked audio between separatists reviewing the crash site also confirm they didn't know they hit a civilian plane.

According to another Facebook post by user known as Russia, hands off Ukraine;

This is how the story about #MH17 developed:

1.On morning of June 17, pro-russian terrorists boast that they have captured ground-to-air missile "Buk" and show the pictures.
2. Terrorists shot down a plane and say that this is Ukrainian military transport aircraft AN-26.
3. All YouTube and pro-russian FB and Twitter communities celebrate this fact and distribute video of the burning plane.
4. Ten minutes later, there are reports that the downed aircraft - is passenger airliner Boing which belongs Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 with 295 people on board.
5. All pro-russian communities starts to cut news about captured ground-to-air missile "Buk" and news about Ukrainian AN-26 crash and delete videos.

Here is news from Russian propaganda channel about Ukrainian AH-26, but with photos of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 !!! - http://lifenews.ru/news/136801

This article posted minutes after the crash claiming that "The rebels reported shooting down AN-26 plane in eastern Ukraine", supported by the video from the scene of Boeing 777 crash.