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The violence continues in the Ukraine on Wednesday, as two Ukrainian fighter jets were shot down near the Russian border.  The planes were downed in area near where the Malaysia Airlines jet was blown out the sky by Russian separatist last week killing 298 people.  This is also an area of intense fighting by government forces and separatists.

The New York Times reported the Ukrainian government stated two fighter jets had been brought down near the village of Dmytrivka, east of Donetsk and about five miles from the Russian border, where government troops have been pushing hard to cut off the flow of fighters and supplies from Russia to the insurgents.

The Ukrainian government has stated that the pilots ejected safely but both sides are scrambling to find them.

Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the Ukrainian National Defense and Security Council, said the two jets had been hit by fire from the Russian side of the border. “The planes were shot down from Russian territory,” Mr. Lysenko said in a statement on Twitter.

According to Air Force Technology the Su-25 is single-seat, close-support aircraft, known by the NATO reporting name Frogfoot, is manufactured by the Sukhoi Design Bureau Joint Stock Company, based in Moscow, and the Novosibirsk Aircraft Production Association of Novosibirsk, Russia.

The Su-25 is ground attack aircraft is primarily designed to attack small mobile and stationary ground targets.

The conflict is escalating between the government of Ukraine and Russian separatists who want autonomy in the region but are backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“According to the preliminary information we have, the missiles were fired from the territory of Russia,” Andriy Lysenko, spokesman for Ukraine’s National Council for Security and Defense told a news conference Wednesday.

He said the planes were flying at 17,000 feet when they were struck. “Such altitude is too high to be reached by portable air-defense systems,” Lysenko said, referring to field weapons used by the insurgents. “It can be reached only by heavy missile complexes.”

USA Today reported that the attack and Lysenko’s suggestion of Russian involvement come a day after senior U.S. intelligence officials warned that Russia was continuing to supply rebels with arms and training despite U.S. evidence that separatists used Russian weaponry to shoot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 last week, killing all 298 aboard. The separatists and Russia blame Ukraine’s military for downing the Boeing 777.

Today CNN reported that in the week leading up to the July 17 crash of MH17, Ukrainian officials said an Antonov An-26 transport plane and a Sukhoi Su-25 fighter jet had been brought down. The Ukrainian military said the missile that struck the Su-25 had been fired from Russian territory.

CNN continued to report that one of its team on the ground in Donetsk was turned away by rebel fighters at the entrance to the town of Snizhne, near Dmytrivka. The militants said they had orders not to allow people to travel farther because of fighting.

Presently there has been wide condemnation of the violence in Eastern Ukraine, especially over the downing of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 near the village of Hrabove last week.

As of right now their does not appear to be a strong consensus on what action to take against Russia with the president taking incremental approaches to new sanctions and wanting the Europeans to do more.

It does not look like the Europeans will do more than they are doing now, especially when 30% of Europe’s energy flows from Russia.

Washington Post Columnist David Ignatius wrote last week that Russia’s energy weapon is potent, in the short run, but its impact will decline sharply over the next decade as U.S. production of shale oil and gas rises and the United States becomes a major energy exporter. By 2020, according to administration estimates, the United States could be able to export more than 90 billion cubic meters of LNG annually, or about half of the gas Russia now supplies to Europe. At that point, Moscow loses its chokehold.

This is more of a long term strategy. First the Europeans need to take a more aggressive stance toward Russia, but this is not going to happen any time soon.

Secondly, the U.S. needs a long term coherent strategy; maybe the first place to start is to ramp up its energy exports to Europe as a way to lessen dependency on Russia.