MOSCOW: The BUK missile system blamed for shooting down flight MH17 over east Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board, is an anti-aircraft weapon whose origins date back to the Soviet era.
The system is designed to be a mobile surface-to-air system able to engage multiple targets at a variety of ranges.
BUK — which means “Beech” in Russian — first fully entered service with the Red Army in 1980, and has been exported to many countries, including North Korea and Syria. NATO’s official designation for it is the SA-11 Gadfly.
The system fires a single-stage 700-kilogramme (1,500-pound) missile whose warhead explodes in …read more
Source: Free Malaysia Today
