NATO Supreme Commander Gen. Philip Breedlove said back on June 30 at a Pentagon news conference that Russia had been providing air defense training to Russian separatists on its territory that focused on "vehicle-borne" surface-to-air missiles, reads a statement posted on the NATO Web site.
A vehicle-borne capability would involve a surface-to-air missile with a longer range than portable shoulder-fired missiles known as MANPADS, according to the statement.
“What we see in training on the east side of the border [with Ukraine] is big equipment, tanks, APCs, anti-aircraft capability, and now we see those capabilities being used on the west side of the border,” Breedlove said on June 30.
He added that the anti-aircraft capability training focused on larger vehicle-borne missiles instead of portable MANPADS.
“We have not seen training of MANPADS. But we have seen vehicle-borne capability being trained,” Breedlove told reporters.
According to the statement, U.S. officials said that an An-26 cargo plane that crashed in eastern Ukraine on Monday was shot down by a surface-to-air missile.
On Wednesday, a senior administration official said the An-26 aircraft was shot down from an altitude of 6,400 meters in eastern Ukraine on June 30.
