MOSCOW, December 23. /TASS/. Russian special services have evidence that the downing of the Malaysian Boeing over Ukraine’s Donbas area in July 2014 might have happened as a result of an operation by Ukrainian secret services, but it remains unclear whether the ill-fortunate passenger jet had been the real target, or if it was a tragic mistake, a reliable source at a competent agency told the media.

The source claims that according to some evidence, the operation had been planned by the Ukrainian Security Service in cooperation with the National Security and Defense Council. The Ukrainian Armed Forces were ordered to act on the plan without really knowing its ultimate aims.

The daily Komsomolskaya Pravda has published information claiming that Ukrainian military were involved in the loss of flight MH17. The daily said its journalists had found a Ukrainian witness who argues that the passenger jet was downed with an air-to-air missile launched from a Ukrainian Sukhoi-25 fighter-bomber.

“One may also speculate that the Ukrainian Air Force and air defense weapons on the ground had been involved in the operation. It remains unclear whether the Boeing was the target from the outset, or the military had made a mistake,” the source said about the publication.

According to the source, there had been growing evidence exposing Ukrainian secret services’ involvement in the Malaysian Boeing’s crash. According to information available at this point the Ukrainian Security Service, which is in charge of investigating the disaster for Ukraine, has already eliminated all information about the movements of anti-aircraft weapons in the area of the disaster and all data about flights there.

Earlier, the Ukrainian leadership claimed that Ukrainian combat aircraft in the zone of the military crackdown on militias in south-eastern Ukraine flew no sorties during the day when the airliner was lost. “They most certainly did fly,” the source said.

A Boeing-777 of the Malaysian Airlines, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala-Lumpur, crashed in Ukraine’s Donetsk Region on July 17. All of the 298 passengers and crew died. Many of the passengers were Dutch subjects.

In early September, the Netherlands’ Security Council published a report containing intermediate findings of the panel of investigators stating that the plane fell apart in the air after being hit with many objects flying at high speed. A final version of the report is scheduled to emerge within a year after the disaster.