Ukraine's military clung to its denial today that a rogue missile blew up a Russian airliner last week, killing 78, as angry and grieving relatives visited the Black Sea crash site.
But President Leonid Kuchma, facing pressure from Russia to disclose more about the missile exercises on the Crimean peninsula last Thursday, appeared to stop short of ruling out that a Ukrainian rocket could have gone wildly off course.
Technically it is impossible, but theoretically everything is possible, President Kuchma told reporters. Following a catastrophe all theories should be discussed, but only by experts.
The Defence Ministry insisted for the fifth consecutive day that it had not caused the mid-air explosion, but it backtracked on previous statements about where exactly its missiles fell.
Speculation as to the cause of the crash has increasingly turned to a missile strike, after U.S. officials said spy satellite data showed a missile plume near the crash area.
Russian investigators said they had found debris at the wreck site which could not have come from the Tu-154 jet which was flying from Tel Aviv to Novosibirsk in Siberia.