Russia Demands More Data on Missile in Crash

Russia shifted gears Saturday and appeared to give greater credence to evidence that a stray Ukrainian antiaircraft missile may have inadvertently struck and destroyed a Russian passenger jet last week, killing all 78 people on board.

President Vladimir V. Putin said he wasn’t satisfied with Ukrainian documentation of antiaircraft missile-firing exercises that took place Thursday at the time the aircraft exploded 30,000 feet above the Black Sea.

In particular, Defense Minister Sergei B. Ivanov said, Putin demanded more information about the firing of an S-200 missile at 1:41 p.m., just three minutes before the Siberian Airlines charter flight disappeared from radar screens. Ivanov said Putin found the data supplied by Ukraine “not sufficiently complete.”

Previously, Russian officials had said their prime theory for the cause of the explosion was terrorism.

“All versions of what happened are being examined, including the possible link between the plane crash and the air defense exercises held by the Ukrainian armed forces,” Ivanov said grimly in a brief statement on state television.

Ivanov’s comments came after an acknowledgment by Russia’s security chief that many small holes were discovered in sections of the fuselage and that “foreign objects” unrelated to the aircraft were found floating amid the wreckage. Rescue workers reported seeing at least one cylinder that resembled part of a missile casing or booster. The S-200 typically sprays shrapnel when it detonates.

“A large number of deformities and puncture holes, similar in shape, have been registered on the elements of the aircraft’s airframe and passenger compartment’s interior,” said Security Council Chairman Vladimir B. Rushailo. “Further search has uncovered objects that do not belong to the plane’s structure. The identification of these objects is currently underway.”

Rushailo said 16 bodies had been recovered.

Siberian Airlines 1812, a regularly scheduled charter flight, was en route from Tel Aviv to the Siberian city of Novosibirsk when passing pilots saw it explode. Many of the passengers were naturalized Israeli citizens, returning to Russia to visit family during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.

Family members of the victims continued to arrive Saturday in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, their grief a stark contrast to the normally jovial mood of the city’s holiday-seekers. Relatives visited a morgue to identify their family members, but some of the bodies were so badly damaged that identification was difficult.

“Well it looked like her, but it’s not her--judging by the ring, it’s not my wife,” said Valery Chukhovsky, whose wife had spent a month with their son in Israel. Through tears, he added: “I want to find her in order to take her back home and bury her there. This is the most important thing.”

Ivanov said Ukrainian investigators would travel to Sochi to join the Russian investigation.

Meanwhile, Russian recovery crews launched a remote-controlled submersible Saturday to search the sea floor for debris, including the plane’s flight data and cockpit voice recorders. Pieces of the destroyed aircraft were dispersed over a wide area of the sea, parts of which are more than 7,000 feet deep. Much of what sank may never be recovered.

The exercises at Ukraine’s Opuk naval firing range included S-200 and S-300 surface-to-air missiles, some models of which are capable of traveling the 200-plus miles from the firing range to the plane.

Ukrainian and Russian military officials have maintained that it was impossible for one of the missiles to go astray. They have said that the range of the missiles fired Thursday was too short to hit the airliner and that all 23 practice missiles reached their intended targets.

The S-200 has an official range of 185 miles, but that is commonly considered a reliable minimum.

“Let’s face the truth--if the Ukrainian air defense service was guilty after all, they would hardly acknowledge it straightaway,” Nikolai Svanidze, lead anchor on Russian state television, said in a commentary Saturday evening. “In such a situation, their Russian counterparts would not acknowledge it straightaway, either. Nor would anyone else.”

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Alexei Kuznetsov of The Times’ Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.