DHAKA: It takes professionals to shoot down an airliner and not a group of ‘drunken gorillas’, Ukrainian prime minister Arseny Yatseniuk told a German newspaper on Saturday, claiming that Russia was behind the downing of Malaysia Airlines MH-17.

‘Very professional staff is needed to find targets and fire this missile,’ he said in an interview to be published on Sunday in Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

‘It is possible that these people came from Russia.’

Referring to the possibility that the missile was launched by pro-Russian separatists who have been fighting Kiev, he said ‘(It could) not be operated by drunken gorillas’.

Kiev raised the stakes on Saturday by saying it had evidence that a Russian fired the missile widely assumed to have brought down the plane in east Ukraine last Thursday.

Yatseniuk ruled out that the missile could have been launched by Ukraine.

‘All of Ukraine’s ground-air-missiles are stationed elsewhere. We are ready to make public evidence and locations.’

BDST: 2140 HRS, JUL 19, 2014