NewsTracker Answers for week of Oct. 03, 2016

Q: A Dutch-led investigative team said the surface-to-air missile that downed a passenger jet over eastern Ukraine in July 2014, killing all 298 people aboard, came from Russia and was fired from territory held by pro-Moscow separatists. Where is Ukraine?

Circle the area on this map

Q: Both Russia and the rebels in Ukraine deny any role in the attack on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was traveling from Amsterdam to the Malaysian capital of . . .

A. Bangkok

B. Jakarta

C. Kuala Lumpur

D. Singapore

C. Another Malaysian Airlines flight was lost in March 2014 after it took off from the capital of Kuala Lampur. Wreckage from that jet has been found in the Indian Ocean.

Q: Investigators said missiles and a launcher were smuggled into eastern Ukraine from Russia and returned to Russia the day after the attack. Also in 2014, Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in what body of water?

A. Aral Sea

B. Black Sea

C. Caspian Sea

D. Dead Sea

B. Russian maintained naval bases for its Black Sea fleet in Crimea after Ukraine gained its independence. But after governments of Russia and Ukraine had a falling out in 2014, Russia backed Crimean separatists who seized the peninsula and joined Russia. The annexation has been called invalid by the UN.

Q: About 17 percent of the people in Ukraine are ethnic Russians and most live in the eastern part of the country where Russian-backed separatists have battled Ukrainian troops. What country besides Russia has ruled Ukraine?

A. Austria

B. Lithuania

C. Poland

D. All of the above

D. At different times all of these countries ruled parts of what is now Ukraine, the second largest nation in Europe behind Russia. The former Soviet Union ruled Ukraine before it became independent in 1991.

Q: Ukraine was the center of the first eastern Slavic state, which during the 10th and 11th centuries was the largest and most powerful country in Europe. It was centered around what is now Ukraine’s capital . .

A. Kiev

B. Minsk

C. Riga

D. Vilnius

A. The Kyivan Rus was first established by Scandinavian colonists who were gradually assimilated by the East Slavs. Kiev was the capital of the loose federation of East Slavic tribes of the Rus, which are claimed as the cultural ancestors of the people of modern Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.