MH17 report identifies Russian soldiers suspected of downing plane in Ukraine
Source: The Guardian
A British-led online investigative team says it has identified Russian soldiers linked to a surface-to-air missile suspected of downing Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in Ukraine in 2014.
The Bellingcat report paints a picture of up to 100 Russian soldiers and officers who it says could have known about or been involved in the planes downing on 17 July 2014, at the height of the conflict between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists. All 298 people on board died in the crash.
Drawing on open source data such as soldiers social network photos, an online forum for soldiers relatives and Google Earth satellite imagery, the report expands on previous Bellingcat findings to argue that a Buk missile belonging to the 2nd battalion of Russias 53rd anti-aircraft missile brigade likely shot down the Boeing 777.
The head of the MH17 investigation, Fred Westerbeke, told victims families in a letter last week that finding and prosecuting those responsible could take a long time. But the new report raises the likelihood that justice could be served, Bellingcat head Eliot Higgins told the Guardian. Although names were changed and faces blurred in the public report, the identities were provided in a version given to Dutch prosecutors in December.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/24/mh17-report-identifies-russian-soldiers-suspected-of-downing-plane-in-ukraine
However, it gives the full name of the brigade's overall chief, identifying him as Sergey Muchkayev.
The report says that "the decision to send military equipment to the Russia-Ukraine border and to Ukraine was made at an even higher level - the level of the ministry of defence of Russia".
"Consistent with the probable conclusion that the Russian Buk missile launcher... downed MH17, the ministry of defence (of Russia) bears the main responsibility... shared with the military commanders and leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics", the document adds.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35654692
underpants
(182,829 posts)I applied the duck rule to this and it has held true.
Response to underpants (Reply #1)
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JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)"suspected of downing"
"the probable conclusion"
"paints a picture"
Totally definitive. Putin pulled the trigger!
Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)Not while Putin's president. Litvinenko's murderer is living the life of Riley in Russia, and I'm sure these terrorists are doing the same.
flamin lib
(14,559 posts)They were just cleaning their missile launcher and it went off . . .
Response to muriel_volestrangler (Original post)
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yourpaljoey
(2,166 posts)muriel_volestrangler
(101,321 posts)and they made that claim that day, before they realised what they'd shot down:
DONETSK, July 17. /ITAR-TASS/. Militiamen of the self-proclaimed Donetsk Peoples Republic (DPR) brought down a military transport Antonov-26 (An-26) plane of the Ukrainian Air Force on the outskirts of the town of Torez, eyewitnesses said.
A missile hit the An-26, it fell on the ground and caught blaze, they said.
On July 14, militiamen of the self-proclaimed Luhansk Peoples Republic downed another An-26 of the Ukrainian Air Force.
More:
http://tass.ru/en/world/741164
Torez is where MH17 was shot down. No An-26 was shot down that day. It's all been pretty simple - they had new access to a weapons system that could bring down planes at altitude, and they used it on a foreign airliner by mistake, rather than the Ukrainian military plane they thought they were aiming at.
Little Tich
(6,171 posts)reorg
(3,317 posts)uhuh