DONETSK, July 17. /ITAR-TASS/. Militiamen of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) brought down a military transport Antonov-26 (An-26) plane of the Ukrainian Air Force on the outskirts of the town of Torez, eyewitnesses said. A missile hit the An-26, it fell on the ground and caught blaze, they said.
On July 14, militiamen of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic downed another An-26 of the Ukrainian Air Force.

The self-defense forces of Donetsk People’s Republic seized control of a Ukrainian anti-air military installation, RIA Novosti reports.


"The forces of Donetsk People’s Republic assumed control of A-1402 military base," the militia's representative said. According to him, it is an anti-aircraft missile forces facility equipped with Buk mobile surface-to-air missile systems.
During the last several days the militia took control of two internal security troops' installations in eastern Ukraine.
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A Ukrainian military transport aircraft has been shot down in the east, amid fighting with pro-Russian separatist rebels, Ukrainian officials say.
They say the An-26 plane was hit at an altitude of 6,500m (21,325ft).
The plane was targeted with "a more powerful missile" than a shoulder-carried missile, "probably fired" from Russia. The crew survived, reports say.
Russia has made no comment. Separately, Nato reported a Russian troop build-up near the Ukraine border.

Shortly before reports surfaced that a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 had crashed in eastern Ukraine, a social media site purported to belong to a separatist leader claimed that insurgents had shot down an aircraft.
In a post on VKontakte, Russia's largest social media site, which has since been taken down, separatist leader Igor Girkin, aka Strelkov, wrote: "In the vicinity of Torez, we just downed a plane, an AN-26. It is lying somewhere in the Progress Mine. We have issued warnings not to fly in our airspace. We have video confirming. The bird fell on a waste heap. Residential areas were not hit. Civilians were not injured."


The AN-26 is a Soviet-built twin-engine transport plane used by the Ukrainian military. Torez is a small city of 80,000 located some 40 kilometers east of Donetsk. Included in the post were two videos that showed a rising plume of black smoke in the distance.
The claim was posted at 5:50 pm Moscow time, shortly before reports surfaced that the Malaysian civilian aircraft, on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, had crashed in eastern Ukraine in the same area near the Russian border.