President Vladimir Putin's jet was allegedly travelling almost the same route as Malaysia Airlines MH17 plane shortly before the crash that killed 298 passengers on-board Thursday, Interfax news agency reported citing sources. After attending the BRICS summit in Brazil, Russia's president was apparently on his way back to Moscow.

"I can say that Putin's plane and the Malaysian Boeing intersected at the same point and the same echelon. That was close to Warsaw on 330-m echelon at the height of 10,100 meters. The presidential jet was there at 16:21 Moscow time and the Malaysian aircraft - 15:44 Moscow time," a source told the news agency, which was the first and the only media source to publish the news, on condition of anonymity. "The contours of the aircrafts are similar, linear dimensions are also very similar, as for the coloring, at a quite remote distance they are almost identical," the source added.  

So, could that mean the long-range, Soviet-era SA-11 ground-to-air missile shot at MH17 Thursday afternoon was somehow aiming to target Putin? It remains unclear for now since there have been reports contradicting Intefax's report, claiming that Presidential plane was not flying over Ukraine's conflict zone at the same time.

As a source told Gazeta.ru online news portal, Putin's plane does take off from Vnukovo-3 [the terminal that accepts business jets], but the president does not fly over the conflict-gripped neighboring country. "Putin has only one jet - Board One, he does not fly other planes. This plane always takes off from Vnukovo-3, but the presidential plane have not been flying over Ukraine for a while," the source at Vnukovo-3 terminal said.

The Boeing 777-200 carrying 298 passengers and crew crashed while flying over a part of eastern Ukraine near the Russian border that is essentially a war zone between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists. U.S. officials are confident the jet was shot down by a surface-to-air missile, and the Associated Press reported that Soviet-era Buk missile systems had been seen on the ground in a separatist-controlled area of eastern Ukraine.

In a conflict between Kiev and pro-Moscow rebels that has set Russia, which Western powers accuse of trying to destabilize Ukraine to maintain influence over its old Soviet empire, and the West at battling positions, Ukraine accused pro-Moscow militants, aided by Russian military intelligence officers, of firing a long-range, Soviet-era SA-11 ground-to-air missile, Reuters reported. But leaders of the rebel Donetsk People's Republic have denied any involvement and said a Ukrainian air force jet had brought down the intercontinental flight.

Since protests toppled the Moscow-backed president in Kiev in February, the conflict has killed hundreds. The past four months have witnessed the shooting of several Ukrainian military aircraft in the area, including an An-26 being shot down on Monday and one of its Sukhoi Su-25 fighters getting downed on Wednesday by an air-to-air missile, with Kiev accusing Russian forces of playing a direct role since the rebels do not appear to have access to aircraft.

However, Putin, whose popularity has soared to near-record levels since March, when he annexed Ukraine's Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, has repeatedly denied accusations of supplying arms and volunteers, stating that he's trying to instead broker a peace settlement.

On Friday, Putin blamed the Ukrainian government for the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, claiming that it would not have happened if Kiev had not resumed a military campaign against separatists. "This tragedy would not have happened, if there had been peace on that land, or in any case if military operations in southeastern Ukraine had not been renewed," he said in televised comments.

"And without doubt the government of the territory on which it happened bears responsibility for this frightening tragedy," he said, adding that he had urged the Russian authorities to do everything possible to help with the investigation into the incident. "We will do everything that we can so that an objective pictured of what happened can be achieved. This is a completely unacceptable thing."

"MH-17 is not an incident or catastrophe, it is a terrorist attack," Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko tweeted. He has stepped up his military campaign against the rebels since a ceasefire late last month failed to produce any negotiations.

Meanwhile, the White House confirmed Thursday that Putin informed President Barack Obama in a telephone conversation that a Malaysian airplane crashed on Ukrainian territory. The two leaders were on a pre-planned call about the situation in Ukraine during which information became available from air traffic controllers about the crash.