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KYIV, Ukraine — A Ukrainian official said a passenger plane carrying 295 people was shot down Thursday over a town in eastern Ukraine. Malaysia Airlines tweeted that it lost contact with one of its flights over Ukrainian airspace.

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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 kilometres from the Russian border.

The plane appeared to have broken up before impact and the burning wreckage — which included body parts and the belongings of passengers — was scattered over a wide area. The White House said officials were working to confirm a report that 23 U.S. citizens were among the dead.

Anton Gerashenko, an advisor to Ukraine’s interior minister, said on his Facebook page the plane was flying at an altitude of 10,000 metres when it was hit by a missile fired from a “Buk missile system kindly provided by Putin.” The Buk missile system can fire missiles up to an altitude of 22,000 metres.