Well play the whole tape for you. Then the United States will offer assistance we can to help determined what happened and why. Reporter president obama offers help but what can the United States really do . Plus Ground Invasion at gaza. Israeli tanks roll across the border and the air strikes wont relent, and the israeli Prime Minister says the military is getting ready for even more action. Lets talk, live in the cnn newsroom. Good morning to our viewers in the United States and around the world. Im carol costello. U. S. Intelligence out just moments ago with the first real take on responsibility for malaysian flight 17. Preliminary classified report concludes a missile fired by prorussian separatists, prorussian rebels most likely took down the plane. There is still no confirmation this morning that any americans were on board flight 17. Also american investigators are on their way to ukraine to advise to help in any way they can as the world tries to make sense of a passenger plane blown out of the sky. Also, ukrainian rebels claim they gave the missile launcher used and the black boxes to russia overnight. Chris cuomo is covering the story from kiev, ukraine. Hi, chris. Reporter hey carol, how are you . Were stopping here in kiev and going to make our way east towards where the plane was taken down, obviously. Thats much more easily said than done. There are two very different realities all right, weve lost our signal from kiev, but i do know that chris talked to the Ukrainian Foreign minister a little earlier on new day and Ukrainian Foreign minister denied any involvement in the takedown of this plane. Lets listen. The big question is what do you think the cause was . We intercepted a number of calls from the terrorists talking about shutting down the plane. Reporter terrorists yesterday talking about shooting down plane and the time was close to when it happened. Yes exactly and put on facebook a message about shutting down the plane. So its absolutely clear that its up to us to have responsibility on that. So why do you think they would shoot down a passenger aircraft . I dont know. You never know what is in the head of terrorists. There is nothing in the phone calls to suggest a motive . Its a tragedy but for the terrorists its a different thing. The separatists, the militants, the terrorists, depending on perspective they blame the Ukrainian Government, this was an attempt to take down the president putins plane and you know, to basically hostile action from ukraine to russia. How do you respond to that . Its ridiculous. Almost all the separatist leaders are actually russian. Some of them with Russian Special services. If theyre going to shoot putins plane, it would be the russian system i would say. They are saying Ukrainian Government used their own assets to attack the russian president. Thats why this happened. Firstly, we dont have such assets on the ground because we simply dont use any antiair missile capabilities there and we dont have such capabilities in donetsk. Theres no way our forces could be engaged in any way in this incident or any other incidents all around. Well try to reestablish our live signal from kiev, ukraine, but cnn is using its worldwide resources to cover this air tragedy. We have correspondents and analysts across the globe. More of their live reports as well just ahead. Also want to tell you about a this, shocking tapes released reportedly between prorussian militants moments after that missile brought down malaysian flight 17. The calls were released overnight by the secret service of ukraine. You will hear the slow realization that a passenger plane and not an enemy aircraft was shot down. Lets talk about this tape. Joining me is kevin ryan, former Defense Attache at the u. S. Embassy in moscow. Now at Harvards Kennedy school. Good morning, sir. Good morning. As you were listening to the tape, what went through your mind . Well, i speak russian, and i was struck by just as you said, the realization that was slowly coming over the report, reporter, the guy reporting from the field that what they had done was not what they intended to do. You know, i think there is an explanation for this, and well find it out soon. I think theres probably a technical reason for this, and i do agree, im glad that the u. S. Has been able to confirm what do you mean by a technical reason for this . So the buk or the sa11 system operates really out of three components. It has a command an control vehicle, a laumpler, which is what everybody is focused on but also a surveillance radar which nobody has mentioned. This launcher operated evidently in isolation, by itself, not connected to a command and control unit, and not connected to a surveillance radar. So the radar on the launcher is much shorter range and the crew probably did not have a lot of time between the time they first either with their eyes or through the smaller radar found this target. They didnt have time to consider the flight path, the trajectory, the altitude and so on. Had they had that time they probably would have realized that this was not a military aircraft and would not have fired at it, but as it was, this is all conjecture but i believe this fits the facts as we know them. Right. As it was, they saw it, they launched and only afterwards were they able to determine what they had shot down. I want to show people exactly what were talking about. This is the surface toair missile the sa11. It has the ability to take out a plane at 45,000 feet. It can launch missiles at four different targets. Two questions for you. Did it appear to you that the rebels knew how to use this weapon, and how did they get this weapon . Okay, these are very important questions, and they go to proving that it could have been the separatists or the rebels. First of all if youre looking at the picture youll see what looks like a gum drop on the front of the missile system. Thats for the acquisition radar, the shorter range radar. That communicates between the missile and the launcher, and it tracks the aircraft but it doesnt give you the minutes and minutes of advanced warning that a surveillance radar would have. Also, when youre looking at this picture, this is just the launcher and it does not include the command vehicle and the other radar xoecomponents so ju the system by itself, although its capable and highly technical, is not as capable as it would be in a complete system, and it would take weeks or months to train american crews on a similar system when we train our soldiers. So the guys who operated this system either had to be former air defense professionals or they had to be getting advice on the ground from air defense professionals as they were operating. Thats what i want to ask you about next, because cnn has found out from sources that a preliminary classified u. S. Intelligence analysis concluded that these missiles were shot from Eastern Ukraine, and they were fired by prorussian separatists, right, and this is a russianmade weapon. Right. Do you know if russia was training these prorussian separatists to use this kind of weapon . Yes, i do not know in particular about this crew or russian training of air defense personnel. I believe that russia has been offering training and assistance to the separatists that started in crimea, and its now spread into Eastern Ukraine. Whether or not they were actually on site and helping these separatists operate this system, i dont know. Mr. Putin, he was quick to express his sympathy but hes certainly not taking responsibility. What do you think his spin will ultimately be . Well, i think the excuse that ukraine is responsible for this because they are combating the separatists is a little bit like the devil made me do it excuse. Its not an excuse that we allow our own kids to offer to us when they do something wrong, and it certainly isnt worthy of a world leader. The spin that russia will continue to put on this is that they are in no way responsible for whats going on in Eastern Ukraine, and thats just blatantly not true. All right, general ryan, thank you so much for being here. I want to bring in our chief international correspondent, christiane amanpour, to talk more about the putin angle of this story, because were going to be hearing a lot more about that. So the russian president , christiane, he put in a phone call with the dutch Prime Minister and called for a thorough and unbiased investigation. Does he mean it . Reporter well, carol, you know, just going to what general ryan said, it is obvious that the russians will deny it as they have denying it, but everybody from the United States to the main european leaders believe that it is only president putin who has influence actual tangible actionable influence with these separate is rebels. So does he mean it . Were not sure. What we certainly do know is that this crime site is insecure, and therefore already we dont even know where the critical information, the flight recorders, the black boxes, whatever you want to say, is on the ground, we dont know where its been taken, has it been taken to objective, not impartial investigators . We dont know what has happened on the grouped. But more than that, european leaders all of whom are meeting in all sorts of various different emergency situations in their capitals for instance Prime Minister cameron had his National Security group meet today here in london, theyre all trying to figure out what to do next, because just before this happened on wednesday, here in europe, two things happened. Europeans again accused Vladimir Putin of not doing what he promised to do, and that is to stop the flow of materiel and fighters in to Eastern Ukraine through the shared border there and not pursuing the Peace Process that the new ukrainian president , petro poroshenko, has proffered and tried to put out there. At the same time, we also on wednesday, 24 hours before this tragedy, spoke to the Ukrainian Foreign minister, and he told me chapter and verse of the kinds of heavy weaponry that have been coming across with the russian knowledge over into Eastern Ukraine, tanks, heavy weaponry, and antiaircraft missiles. That is what he told me 24 hours before this terrible tragedy happened. So there is is a pattern. Three ukrainian flights, military and transport flights, were downed in this same region since june 14th. So there is a pattern that has been established. Nowers crying foul, who did it, who didnt do it . But objective investigation absolutely has to happen and that hopefully will lead to some more definitive analysis. Lets talk about the investigation. Supposedly these prorussian rebels have turned some of the recording devices from the crashed plane over to russia, and if Vladimir Putin is really serious about an objective investigation, shouldnt he turn over those tapes to the ntsb or whoever the investigating body is of this crash . Reporter as you say, whoever the investigating body is. Some are saying it has to be ukraine to do it, as you know, some ntsb people from the United States are going, but there is an International Organization as well that can actually take charge of this kind of thing or be a big part of it. Theres also the osce who are the russian approved and contributed plus all the europeans a part of that, and they also have a security brief and mandate as well, and theyre trying to get to that location. So yes, there are a lot of internationally approved organizations which can actually do the right thing here and try to do it, but heres whats also very, very complex, and weve seen this over the last several months of this crisis in ukraine and with crimea. There is a massive propaganda war going on right now, but most especially inside russia. As you know, Russian State Television and whats called russia today has been parroting a very Species Party line of propaganda ever since this crisis began many months ago and going into overdrive right now. One of the lead reporters for this channel has today resigned and said i am for the truth, and has been tweeting saying ever since this crisis began our mandate is its always ukraines fault. So this is not just something in the atmosphere. This is something that really affects russian Public Opinion and is really corrected from the top and this is another huge thing that has to be coped with and taken into account as they try to have an objective investigation. It is not an easy process. Christiane amanpour, thank you so much. Also this morning, the air space other Eastern Ukraine is shut down and Malaysian Airlines says the path used by flight 17, well they say it was used by other airlines on that day. The flight path taken by mh17 was approved by the International Civil aviation organizations and by the countries whose air space the route passed through. And International Air transportation association, iate, has also stated that their air space, the air travel was unrestricted. 15 of 16 airlines and associations of the asiapacific airlines fly this route over ukraine. Joining me now is cnn aviation correspondent richard quest. In listening to the tapes released by the ukrainian secret service, those rebels said on this tape, why was this plane flying over a war zone . Should the plane or any plane have been flying other that air space . Well, arguably not, but the ikeo, the International Body responsible, had not closed the air space and you know, and the ukrainians hadnt closed the air space above 32,000 feet. The ukrainian authorities had the responsibility for that air space. So when Malaysia Airlines filed its flight plan, said it wanted to fly that route, there was no reason why it should not have flown that route. What you have here is a situation, carol, where some are wanting to blame the car for being on the road, when the road was open, and that seems to me to be slightly back to front. Large parts of southern ukraine and crimea are closed, and are highly restricted at lower altitudes, but this plane was actually at a safer area. It was further north where there had been no restrictions of those sorts of levels and so i believe other planes were on those flight paths, and the real issue is why ikeo or the authorities didnt close it. You know, it just makes you worry, we live in a global economy. People are flying all over the place, right, so it just makes everybody worry about their safety in the air, even flying at 33,000 feet. Yes, as they should in this case. Absolutely. Im not going to sit here and defend what happened. It is absolutely abhorrent, because two things. The plane is flying on a legal air route at a correct altitude in civil aviation, and it gets brought down by illegal weapon fire, by who aever it is, we ar waiting for the final conclusion. That is the reality of the situation. What ikeo has to look at now is why, once those other airliners from the ukrainians, when aircraft had been brought down they didnt constituinstitute t closure they did yesterday. The issue is why was ukraine allowed to keep that air space open for as long as it did. Quickly on the question of the investigation, if i may, carol, just to brief you on that, ukraine says they will hold the investigation as the air Traffic Authority responsible for that area, where the crash or the incident happened. The black boxes, if they are in russia, properly speaking, should be transported back to ukraine where they will have to be sent somewhere else to be decoded but even if ukraine does have the investigation as its legally entitled, carol, there has to be external input into this, and i dont care whether its the brits, the french, the germans, the australians, the americans, a collection of them all, there is no way that one partisan party should or would be allowed to. The ntsb and fbi are on their way serving in an advisory role. What exactly does that mean, richard . Right, glad you asked. The authority to investigate legally is the ukrainians. The plane is a boeing 777. Therefore, the state of design and the state of manufacture is the United States, and the authority responsible for there is the ntsb. So the ntsb takes part in most, in fact if not all crashes involving aircraft. The level at which they will be involved will be determined by how sophisticated the ukrainians are, if they are very sophisticated, you wont need much help from other people. If theyre not so sophisticated, then obviously the british, the americans, the french, they will all be more involved. Ultimately, though, credibility and transparency will be the watch words for this investigation. Legally the responsibility rests with ukraine. Here is the thing, theres been none of that so far, right . You have all those people who died aboard that plane. Their bodies are still there. Whats being done with them . And that is the tragedy. That is the absolute, youve covered these things, you have to secure the area. You have to deal with the human remains, with the dignity that they deserve. You have to preserve the wreck annual for the investigation. So when the separatists say they now want a ceasefire so International Investigators can arrive, well, you have to sort of negotiate and the malaysian Prime Minister said that yesterday. Yes, there will have to be a negotiation to get those experts in. What i can tell you is its foolhearty for those people, however wellmeaning people to be tromping over this ground. Its a bio risk. Its a chemical risk. Its jagged metal. At all levels, carol, the experts need to get in and they need to secure and deal with this safely. All right, ric