Breaking: When early reports of another Malaysian B-777 crash came across the wires, on first pass we considered acts of terrorism, as assumed in the case of the Malaysian B-777 crash in March.

However, subsequent reports from our sources indicate that the aircraft was shot down by a Russian SA11 surface-to-air missile (SAM) system. We have confirmed that Putin’s surrogate “Rebels” in eastern Ukraine have at least one SA11, which was made operational with Russia’s assistance last week, and is currently under direct Russian supervision.

There were 298 civilians on the latest flight, including at least one American.

Wednesday afternoon, the Obama administration announced additional sanctions against Russia for providing these weapons. Apparently Russian responded to those sanctions today. (It is no small irony that Barack Obama heard about the crash first, while on the phone with Vladimir Putin, probably discussing how he would next acquiesce to Putin’s demands.)

On Monday, a Ukrainian An-26 cargo plane was shot down at 21,000 feet by a SAM, and Wednesday a Ukrainian Su-25 fighter was also shot down, though there’s no confirmation whether the latter was an air-to-air missile or SAM.

Hitting an aircraft at 33,000 feet and 500kts, or 21,000 feet as with the An-26, requires a sophisticated SAM system, and a knowledgeable operator. These missiles were fired by Russians or Russian proxies under Russian military supervision, from near the Russian/Ukrainian border.

The U.S. maintains assets in the region and overhead, which monitor in great detail, everything on the ground and in the air. The SA11 depends on integrated radars for accuracy. According to our sources, the U.S. has already determined the exact coordinates of the launch and its trajectory from those radar signatures, and that Russia’s fingerprints are all over this one. Our source would not confirm from which side of the border the missile originated.

The technical intelligence data collected will be critical because Putin’s surrogates claim they have recovered the flight data recorder and sent it to Moscow.

But there were two virtual admission of the shoot down, the first by self-proclaimed military commander of the rebels, Igor Girkin, who posted on his VK page (the Russian version of Facebook) just after the attack: “We just downed an An-26 near Torez. It’s down somewhere near Progress mine. We had warned them not to fly in ‘our sky.’ And here is a video confirming that a ‘bird fell’”:

When it was determined the aircraft was civilian, that post was removed.

The second admission, our sources confirm, was the real time communication intercepts between Putin surrogate, Igor Bezler, a Russian military intelligence officer and commander of the “Donetsk People’s Republic,” with his Russian Federation military controller, Vasili Geranin, just after the shoot down. Bezler says, “We have just shot down a plane,” confirming Russia’s direct or supervisory role in this attack.

Sen. John McCain said if Russia is implicated, there would be “hell to pay.” Democrat Carl Levin, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman, said, “Whoever did it should pay a full price. If it’s by a country, either directly or indirectly, then it could be considered an active war.”

Undoubtedly there are legions of capable intelligence and policy analysts now evaluating the implications of this shoot down for our national security interests, but no less in doubt is the fact the Obama administration will spin this event in the best interest of its political agenda.

Indeed, in the midst of this crisis Obama is keeping his stump speech schedule in Delaware today, and in Wilmington, took a less than a minute to mention the crash, saying it “looks like it may be a terrible tragedy.”

Thursday evening, Obama was scheduled to attend his 393rd fundraiser at enormous taxpayer expense, well on his way to surpassing Bill Clinton’s record. After his stop in Delaware, he’s off to the fashionable Hamptons on Long Island, to swoon other rich and famous liberals.

See our followup analysis of this attack.

(For the record, two other civilian heavies have been shot down in the last three decades. In 1983, a Soviet Su-15 interceptor shot down Korean Air Lines flight 007, killing 269 civilians, including Rep. Larry McDonald (R-GA). Russian took ten years before finally admitting the mistake. In this instance, the pilots were clearly able to see that their target was a commercial airliner. In 1988, during the Iran-Iraq war, the USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian airliner over the Persian Gulf, with 290 civilians onboard. The Vincennes identified the airliner as a hostile aircraft over a war zone, in an era when electronic warfare capabilities were far less accurate than today. Some analysts suggest the airliner was fitter with a second transponder in the front wheel well, which squaked a similar frequency as Iran’s fighters. The U.S. quickly acknowledged the tragic error and in 1996, settled wrongful death compensation claims for $130 million.)