Catastrophic Mistake: Ukrainian rebel Igor Strelkov mistakenly shot down Malaysian Airlines "We warned you – do not fly in “our sky”.

Laughing rebels filmed the plane as it crashed, gleefully bragging ‘That was a blast – look at the smoke!’ while a fireball rose from the debris.

One of the voices is believed to be militia commander Igor Strelkov, who then penned a triumphant war cry on Twitter, saying: ‘We warned you – do not fly in “our sky”.’

A sickening mobile phone video posted online shows a pall of black smoke billowing over the crash site as three rebels provide an excited commentary.

The extraordinary footage – apparently filmed by the shooters themselves – charts the terrible final moments of the doomed airliner.

Their camera does not zoom in enough to see the plummeting plane in the sky, but the rebels’ voices can be heard talking happily of ‘black spots – these are the parts flying’, suggesting it fell to earth in several pieces.

A voice believed to be that of Strelkov – dubbed ‘Igor the Terrible’ – announces: ‘The plane was hit!’ He adds: ‘Look at those black spots, these are the parts, flying … it was a blast … look, look, black smoke!’

Another rebel, possibly referring to the missile system, laughs and says: ‘It was worth bringing this thing, wasn’t it?’

None of the rebels can be seen in their horrific film, but it appears to be genuine because at the time only they seemed to know what was happening. Ordinary life carries on in the village where they are standing. A bus trundles by and an unsuspecting villager is seen wandering past the camera.

Shortly after the passenger plane was downed, Strelkov – seen smirking in propaganda photos – tweeted a boastful message claiming responsibility.

At the time, he apparently believed he had shot down an Antonov-26 military plane of the Ukrainian Air Force, saying it landed near a mine named Progress.

His chilling message read: ‘In the area Torez we just hit down An-26, it’s lying somewhere in the mine “Progress”.

‘We warned you – do not fly in “our sky”. And here is the video confirmation of the “bird dropping”.

‘Bird fell near the mine, the residential sector was not disturbed. Civilians are not injured.’ 
Later as the horror became clear, the tweet was deleted.

Far from civilians being unharmed, accounts began to emerge of bodies falling out of the stricken plane over the village of Rassypnaya. Residents said charred and naked bodies lay in the streets.

Strelkov, who minutes earlier had been boasting about his ‘military’ success, seems to have gone to ground once he realised his catastrophic mistake.