Ukraine forces not involved in downing of Malaysia Airlines plane: Presidency

KIEV (Reuters) - Ukrainian armed forces were not involved in a Malaysian passenger plane being brought down in eastern Ukraine, the presidential press service said on Thursday.

Interfax quoted it as saying that President Petro Poroshenko did not exclude that the plane had been shot down. "This is the third event in the last few days following An-26 and SU-25 planes being brought down. We do not exclude that this plane was also shot down and we stress that the armed forces of Ukraine did not carry out any action to destroy targets in the air," the press service said.

Dozens of bodies were scattered around the smouldering wreckage of a passenger jet that crashed in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, a Reuters reporter said.

An emergency services rescue worker said at least 100 bodies had so far been found at the scene, near the village of Grabovo, and that debris from the wreckage was scattered across an area up to about 15km in diameter.

Broken pieces of the wings were marked with blue and red paint - the same colours as the emblem of the Malaysian airline which lost track of a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was carrying almost 300 people.

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