Ukraine’s security chief Valentyn Nalyvaichenko said that Kremlin-backed separatists on July 17 intended to shoot down a Russian passenger plane to give Moscow a pretext for conventionally invading Ukraine.

At an Aug. 7 briefing in Kyiv, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine alleged that Aeroflot Flight 2074, flying to Larnaca in Cyprus from Moscow, was the target, not the Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17, where 298 people were killed in the shoot-down from a ground-to-air missile.