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A Ukranian rebel leader admitted this week that pro-Russian rebels had a BUK or an SA 11 missile launcher.

Alexander Khodakovsky, commander of the Vostok Battalion, told Reuters in an exclusive interview that they had in their possession said missile launcher.

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The BUK is the surface-to-air missile system that U.S. intelligence claims to have shot down Malaysian Airlines Flight MH-17 that killed 298 passengers and crew members.

In the interview, Khodakovsky accused the Ukranians for provoking the incident.

"I was told that a BUK had come under the flag of LNR (Luhansk People's Republic)," he told Reuters.

Khodakovsky said Kiev launched several air strikes against rebel forces in the area where flight MH-17 crashed 10 kilometers from the town of Snezhnoye.

He also said that Ukraine is to blame for downing the passenger flight when it launched air strikes at the exact time MH-17 flew over the Ukranian airspace.

"Ukraine did everything to ensure that a civilian aircraft was shot down," he said.

However, U.S. intelligence believes that pro-Russian rebels shot MH 17 down by mistake and failed to determine that the plane was a civilian passenger flight.

Pentagon spokesperson Eileen Lainey sees Khodakovsky's remarks as confirmation that the pro-Russian separatists have received arms, training and support from Russia, though she dismissed the claim, that Kiev should be responsible for the MH 17 crash.

"This is just another attempt to move the attention from the facts," she said.

The rebel leader neither confirms nor denies that the BUK came from Russia in the exclusive with Reuters. But he also said that if anybody offered him a weapon like the BUK, he would take it.

"As far as I know they (LNR) sent it back after the MH 17 was shot down to remove the proof of its presence," Khodakovsky said

What remains unclear is he did not say where.

TagsRebels had a BUK, Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17, BUK