Editing Korean Air Lines Flight 007 (section)

===Initial Soviet denial===
General Secretary [[Yuri Andropov]], on the advice of Defense Minister [[Dmitriy Ustinov]], but against the advice of the [[Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Soviet Union)|Foreign Ministry]], initially decided not to make any admission of downing the airliner, on the premise that no one would find out or be able to prove otherwise.<ref name="Oberdorfer">Oberdorfer, p. 51</ref> Consequently the [[Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union|TASS]] news agency reported twelve hours after the shoot-down only that an unidentified aircraft, flying without lights, had been intercepted by Soviet fighters after it violated Soviet airspace over Sakhalin. The aircraft had allegedly failed to respond to warnings and "continued its flight toward the Sea of Japan".<ref name="Oberdorfer"/><ref name="Daniloff-294"/> Some commentators believe that the inept manner in which the political events were handled by the Soviet government<ref name="Dallin">Dallin, p. 89</ref> was affected by the failing health of Andropov, who was permanently hospitalised in late September or early October 1983 (Andropov died the following February).<ref name="Pry"/>

In a 2015 interview [[Igor Kirillov]], the senior Soviet news anchor said that he was initially given a printed TASS report to announce over the news on September 1, which included an "open and honest" admission that the plane was shot down by mistake (a wrong judgment call by the Far Eastern Air Defence Command). However, at the moment the opening credits of the ''[[Vremya]]'' evening news programme rolled in, an editor ran in and snatched the sheet of paper from his hand, handing him another TASS report which was "completely opposite" to the first one and to the truth.<ref>{{cite interview |last=Kirillov |first=Igor |interviewer=Natalia Rostov |date=January 11, 2016 |access-date=January 13, 2016 |script-title=ru:Телезвезды: Игорь Кириллов: Интервью легендарного диктора программы «Время» |language=ru |url=https://meduza.io/feature/2016/01/11/telezvezdy-igor-kirillov}}</ref>