Military expert Igor Tikhonov explained to Pravda.Ru why Russia will not negotiate with the West on compensation for those killed in the crash of Boeing flight MH17 in the sky over Donbass.
How did the Boeing die? A film by Andrey Karaulov
On May 25, the Netherlands and Australia blamed the Russian Federation for the crash of the MH17 flight. The final report of the international investigation team has been published, in which Russia is called upon "to enter into a dialogue in order to come to a solution to compensate for the enormous suffering and damage caused by the downing of MH17." The next step could be the transfer of the case to an international court or other organization, the authors of the government statement threaten.
Investigators found it difficult to answer when and to which court the results of the investigation would be submitted. The main conclusion is that Boeing was shot down from the Buk air defense system, which belonged to the 53rd anti-aircraft missile brigade of the RF Armed Forces from Kursk.
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop announced joint sanctions against Russia by Australia, Belgium, Malaysia and the Netherlands. The conclusions of the Netherlands and Australia were supported by the European Union and NATO. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson tweeted that the incident is "an example of the Kremlin's neglect of innocent lives." "The Kremlin believes that it can act with impunity ... The Russian government must now answer for its actions," the head of British diplomacy said.
As he said "Pravda Ru" military expert, retired colonel Igor Tikhonov, The West is trying to develop this topic unprovenly in order to "again poke us in the dirt with our faces." No one seeks to show the facts, the Pravda.Ru expert noted. And they are such that the shooting of the Buk with a range of up to ten kilometers is provided by a whole weapons complex. This is a ground-based target detection station that directs, guides the missile, accompanies the target and gives the command to launch one of the installations.
“If we allegedly did this from Kursk, then from Kursk to Donetsk there are three hundred kilometers and the firing range of the Buk does not allow hitting such a target ... And if we allegedly brought a launcher to the territory of Ukraine, then this machine cannot fire on its own, it has there must be a guidance station, the TTX installation itself cannot independently guide,” Igor Tikhonov told Pravda.Ru.
According to the Pravda.Ru expert, Russia will not conduct any dialogue on compensation, because it will not accept the results of the investigation. "They will begin to impose sanctions on the accounts of our enterprises abroad by any means through European courts and try to take this money by the decision of the Hague court. And what kind of court this is, the case of Yugoslav leader Milosevic showed. He died in prison, and then the Hague court said: sorry , but he is not to blame, it turns out," Igor Tikhonov noted in an interview with Pravda.Ru.
“I don’t believe that the Americans with their most powerful aerospace forces did not have satellites hanging over Ukraine at that time. Therefore, I think that let them open their cards, meet and look calmly with us,” Igor Tikhonov summed up in an interview with correspondent of Pravda.Ru.
Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, during a conversation with his Dutch counterpart Stef Blok, said that he had not heard from him any reliable facts that could prove Russia's involvement in the crash of the Malaysian Boeing MH17.
The plane crash happened in July 2014. The plane was shot down in the sky over the Donbass, killing 298 people.
Like Pravda.Ru, this commission's current resolution on Russia's guilt is far from the first. Already in 2016, experts had serious doubts about the quality of the work of the commission itself and the true goals of its work. In particular, Oleg Smirnov, President of the Civil Aviation Partner Foundation, Honored Pilot of the USSR then he said: "This version is not the first, but the next one in an absolutely mediocre and unprofessional investigation of this grave tragedy. What is happening can not be called anything but an information war. All studies are carried out with gross violations of international aviation rules."
The International Investigation Team (JIT) said the Buk that shot down MH17 was flown to Ukraine from Russia. JIT will continue to look for the culprits
The wreckage of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 (flight MH17) at the Gilse Reijen military base in the Netherlands (Photo: RIA Novosti / Maxim Blinov)
What and how did the investigation prove?
On September 28, during the presentation, the head of the central department of criminal investigations of the National Police of the Netherlands, Wilbert Paulissen, and the Attorney General of the Netherlands, Fred Westerbeck, showed photographs of the contrail of a launched rocket. Investigators were able to tie the photograph to the area and determine where the strike came from. In order to more accurately determine the location of the Buk installation, the commission interviewed witnesses who were not far from the location of the combat vehicle.
The International Investigation Team (JIT) into the circumstances of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing crash. Investigators found that the Buk from which the Malaysian plane was shot down was delivered to Ukraine through the Russian border. The JIT also determined the location of the rocket launch. According to the report, the missile that hit MH17 was launched from an agricultural field near the village of Pervomaisky. After the attack on Boeing, the self-propelled unit was delivered back to Russian territory, follows from the published text of the report.
In addition to interviews, satellite images, intelligence data from the United States and the Netherlands, the JIT operated with a large number of videos and photographs of eyewitnesses of the column's progress. Pictures have been added to 3D model which illustrated the course of events.
According to Alexander Domrin, a professor at the Faculty of Law at the Higher School of Economics, this evidence can only be accepted by the court as circumstantial. “Some telephone conversations, some facts of the movement of some equipment - all these are indirect facts,” agrees Valery Vanin, a member of the International Union of Lawyers.
How did they react abroad?
Foreign politicians have been reluctant to comment on the results of the MH17 crash investigation. One of the first to speak was the deputy of the German Bundestag from the Green Party, Marieluise Beck. “Even if we assume that the strike on the plane was the result of a military error, the political responsibility lies with the Kremlin and President Putin personally,” she said.
The US official position was more reserved. "The United States welcomes the interim report of the International Investigation Team into the downing of flight MH17," State Department spokesman John Kirby said. He emphasized that the results of the investigation reinforce the statement of the head of department, John Kerry, made a few days after the crash, that "the liner was shot down by the Buk air defense system from the territory controlled by pro-Russian separatists."
The JIT report was supported by the head of the European External Action Service (EEAS), Federica Mogherini. “To ensure that those responsible for the downing of MH17 are held accountable, the continued support of the investigation by the global community is required,” Mogherini said, adding that the independence and thoroughness of the investigation is “critical.”
What does Moscow say?
After the announced results of the investigation, the Russian Foreign Ministry expressed dissatisfaction with the position of the JIT. “Russia is disappointed that the situation around the Boeing crash investigation is not changing. The findings of the Dutch prosecutor's office confirm that the investigation is biased," said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. She lamented that the JIT removed Moscow from full participation in the investigative process, while Ukraine was made a full member of the JIT. According to the representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, this gave Ukraine "the ability to forge evidence."
Moscow, even before the presentation began, denied any links between Russia or the self-proclaimed republics with the downing of MH17.
“In this case, it is important to draw conclusions, given the latest information that has been published, namely the primary data of the radars, which recorded all flying objects that could launch or be in the air in the territory controlled by the militias,” Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov journalists an hour before the JIT press conference.
“No Russian anti-aircraft missile systems, including the Buk, have ever crossed the Russian-Ukrainian border,” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov later in the day. He questioned the results of the JIT's work, saying that the report was based on "two sources: the Internet and Ukraine's special services."
Mikhail Malyshevsky, adviser to the chief designer of the Almaz-Antey concern, expressed more specific claims to the course of the investigation: the commission of inquiry made a mistake in determining the damage zone and the course of the missile. Malyshevsky said that in 2015 classified data was sent to the Netherlands, which were not taken into account by the JIT. According to Almaz-Antey, the missile could have been fired from the area south of Zaroshchensky, in Ukraine-controlled territory.
As evidence, Moscow also cites the testimony of the Utes-T radar complex in the Rostov region. The complex did not record launches on the territory of the self-proclaimed republics on the day of the tragedy, however, it noticed the work of Ukrainian air defense in the crash area, told On September 26, the head of the radio engineering troops of the Russian Aerospace Forces Andrey Koban told reporters.
What and who is at risk?
At the end of the press conference, the Attorney General of the Netherlands Westerbeck announced the continuation of the investigation until 2018. The court for the proceedings will be set after the JIT forms a list of official suspects. So far, according to the prosecutor, there are about 100 people involved in the transportation and maintenance of the Buk on the list. According to Eric Toller, head of the Russian direction of Bellingcat, the group gave the JIT a list of those involved in the transfer of the Buk to the Russian-Ukrainian border. “JIT gives suspects and those who know something the opportunity to cooperate with the commission,” says Toller. According to him, we are talking about immunity from prosecution.
The commission has already begun searching for defendants in the case. The JIT published a series of telephone conversations between two men with the callsigns Orion and Delfin. Earlier, negotiations of a person with the call sign Orion were published by Novaya Gazeta. The publication calls Orion a military adviser to the commandant's office of the self-proclaimed LNR.
“This report is not properly placed in the legal space,” says RSUH professor Marina Filimonova. According to her, JIT did not designate "participants of the legal relationship and the object of the legal relationship." Filimonova argues that none of the four international courts in the world will allow the Netherlands to pass the threshold of succession of the application.
“A weak evidence base will not prevent an international tribunal from making a decision,” international lawyer Valery Vanin disagrees.
International law does not provide for the possibility of blaming the state as a whole, emphasizes Dmitry Labin, professor at the MGIMO Department of International Law. “Responsibility for war crimes is individual, verdicts will be issued on specific individuals. You can’t blame Russia, because Russia is not a party to the conflict, ”the expert believes.
Moscow. September 28th. site - Today, an international team of investigators investigating the crash of a Malaysian Boeing near Donetsk in the summer of 2014, about the causes of the disaster. In her opinion, the plane was shot down from the territory controlled by the militia by a missile of the Buk anti-aircraft missile system (SAM), which was brought to the Donbass from Russia and then returned back.
However, investigators did not name specific perpetrators of the tragedy. According to them, this has yet to be clarified, and therefore there were no official statements about Russia's involvement in the crash of flight MH17 and the death of 298 people at a press conference. As a result, the work of the international investigation team was extended until the beginning of 2018.
The international team investigating the downing of MH17 includes experts from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia and Ukraine. The group is led by a representative from the Netherlands.
Russian "Buk"
Gilbert Paulissen, head of the Netherlands Police Investigation Department, said at a press conference that the 9M38 rocket was launched from the Pervomaisky area, which at that moment was controlled by the militias. According to him, this is confirmed by satellite data received from the United States and from the European Space Agency. According to him, the Buk air defense system used to launch the missile was brought to eastern Ukraine from Russia and then returned back.
Attorney General of the Netherlands and coordinator of the investigation, Fred Westerbeke, in turn, stressed that the investigators exclude two scenarios of the tragedy - a technical malfunction and a terrorist attack on board the liner. In addition, according to him, there were no other aircraft near the Malaysian Boeing at the time of the crash.
Hundreds of people under suspicion
Westerbeke added that the international team of investigators is aware of 100 people who are involved in the launch of the missile and the transportation of the Buk air defense system. He explained that these people are not automatically suspects, and in order to declare them as such, investigators need to establish the entire chain of commands - from whom the order to launch the rocket came and how it was transmitted. "This will already make it possible to determine which of those involved will be a suspect and who will be a witness," the prosecutor general said.
He stressed separately that the international group is yet to crash the Malaysian Boeing. According to the coordinator of the investigation, the work of the international investigation team has been extended until early 2018.
DNR denies allegations
In the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, addressed to them at a press conference by an international group of investigators. "There were no such air defense systems in our arsenal, neither systems nor specialists. Therefore, we could not shoot down a Boeing," Eduard Basurin, deputy commander of the Donetsk operational command, told Interfax. He called the destruction of a civilian aircraft senseless and "madness".
Basurin said that this is the second time the international commission has drawn the wrong conclusions, as it is deliberately led into a dead end. According to him, for two years now the American side has not shown satellite images allegedly in its possession - evidence that the plane was shot down from the territory of the militia, and Ukraine does not provide its data on the planes being in the air at the time of the tragedy.
Basurin also suggested that the Boeing could have been shot down by a missile from the Buk complex, which is in service with the Ukrainian army. "Ukraine has been armed with such complexes since Soviet times. It could be one of them," he said.
Ukraine was satisfied
According to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, the publication of information about the route of the Buk air defense system, from which the Boeing was shot down, indicates the involvement of the Russian Federation in the death of the liner.
"A new and extremely important element of today's report is information about the route by which weapons got from Russia to the territory of Ukraine and were taken out in the opposite direction through a section of the Ukrainian-Russian border controlled only by Russians and their militants. This once again indicates the direct involvement of the aggressor state to shoot down the plane," the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The position of the Russian side
The first conclusions of experts
On October 13, 2015, the commission of the Dutch Security Council, which was investigating the causes of the crash of the liner, published a report stating that the plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile fired from the Buk air defense system.
On the same day, the general director of the Almaz-Antey air defense concern, Yan Novikov, citing his own investigation, said that the missile was fired at the Boeing not from Snizhne, but from the village of Zaroshchinskoe, which at that time was controlled by the Ukrainian military.
Two days before the publication of the results of the international investigation, on September 26, the Russian military announced that the Utes-T radar complex located in the Rostov region was approaching any air objects from the eastern regions of Donbass controlled by the militia, for example, from the settlement of Snezhnoye. According to Andrey Koban, head of the Radio Engineering Troops of the Aerospace Forces of the Russian Federation, the radar near the village of Ust-Donetsky recorded only two civilian airliners in the vicinity of the Malaysian aircraft.
At the same time, the Russian Aerospace Forces have data that Ukrainian air defense systems were located in the area of the Boeing crash in the Donbass. And, according to Koban, "the fact that Ukraine has not yet made public information from the radar station suggests that the missile launch site - if it was a Buk - was in territory controlled by the Armed Forces of Ukraine."
On the same day, Igor Konashenkov, official representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense, said that due to the position of Ukraine, which does not provide data on the location of its Buk air defense systems on the day of the disaster, the dispatchers' negotiations, the activity of their radars and the operation of Ukrainian air defense systems, the investigation " goes on the wrong track - from conflicting data on the submunitions to an incorrect definition of the type of missile and, as a result, the place of its launch." He promised that Russia would give Holland irrefutable information regarding the Boeing crash.
Peskov directs with inaccuracies to the military
After a briefing at the Russian Ministry of Defense, a Ukrainian journalist asked the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov why, according to data released on Monday, no other aircraft were seen near the liner at the time of the tragedy, although it was previously stated that a Ukrainian Su-25 was seen near it.
Peskov forwarded this question to the military - specialists "who understand the readings of radars." He later added that "primary readings are a picture that carries a lot of technical information," and "radar readings are clear and primary readings are completely different pictures."
He later stated that primary data from Russian radar stations unequivocally indicate that the missile that allegedly caused the Boeing crash was fired from territory not controlled by the Donbass militia. “If there was a missile, it could only be launched from a different territory. In this case, I don’t say from which one. This is a matter for specialists,” Peskov said, stressing that this “is not a hypothesis, but unambiguous data based on primary radar data.
Boeing crash near Donetsk
The Boeing-777 airliner of Malaysia Airlines, following the course of Amsterdam (Netherlands) - Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), was shot down in the airspace over the Donetsk region on July 17, 2014. On board were 298 people, all of them died. Of these, 192 citizens of the Netherlands (one also had US citizenship), 44 Malaysian citizens, including 15 crew members, 27 Australian citizens, 12 Indonesians, 10 British citizens (one also had South African citizenship), four Germans and four Belgians, three Filipinos, one Canadian and one New Zealand.
To investigate the tragedy on August 7, 2014, an international joint investigation team (Joint Investigation Team, JIT) was created, which includes prosecutors and representatives of other law enforcement agencies of Ukraine, the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia and Malaysia, as well as representatives of Eurojust.
So she commented on the statement of her New Zealand colleague Winston Peters, who doubted that Russia was responsible for the tragedy. International investigators claim that the plane was shot down by the Buk air defense system from the area under the control of the DPR.
Data from the Russian radar station indicate that the launch was made from the territory where Ukrainian air defense systems were located. According to experts, the West began to understand that the case is being conducted unprofessionally and deliberately dragged out.
Why politicians started talking about the non-involvement of the Russian Federation in the disaster over the Donbass, RT found out.
"Contradicts the interests of the country"
Australian Foreign Minister Julia Bishop said that for now it is not worth talking about any conclusions on the investigation by the international Joint Investigation Team (JIT) of the crash of the Malaysian Boeing MH17 over the Donbass on July 17, 2014. Of the 298 who died, 38 were Australian citizens.
"The investigation is ongoing and, when completed, the results will be shared with the prosecutors for legal action, which Australia also strongly supports," the Australian foreign minister said. “It is impossible to form an opinion on the evidence because it has not yet been released.”
Previously, Bishop made much more confident statements in this regard. So, in October 2016, she argued that it was necessary to find those responsible for the destruction of the aircraft "in the Russian military command."
“Recently, Australia’s policy has changed, it has become less confrontational towards Russia,” said Mikhail Alexandrov, an expert at the MGIMO Center for Military-Political Studies, in an interview with RT.
The political scientist attributes this change to the losses from anti-Russian sanctions and the departure from the post of prime minister in 2015 of Tony Abbott, who made anti-Russian statements.
Bishop's new statement came after her New Zealand colleague Winston Peters, in an interview with the local newspaper Newshub, said that there was no evidence of Russia's involvement in the destruction of a civilian aircraft.
“You say that the person who launched the rocket did so on Russian orders. The big problem is that your argument from a legal point of view immediately sags, since you have no evidence of this, ”said the New Zealand Foreign Minister.
Speaking about the proposal to resume talks on the creation of a free trade zone with Russia, which were interrupted in 2014, Peters stressed that his country cannot waste time waiting for the outcome of the investigation.
“If it turns out that these insinuations have no actual confirmation, then we will simply waste time, and this is not in the interests of our country,” the minister said.
New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters Reuters
Source: http://rusvesna.su/news/1520968587
“Indeed, there is no evidence,” Alexandrov notes. - And the involvement of the Donbass militias has not been proven either. Much indicates that it was the Kyiv regime that shot down the plane. Both New Zealanders and Australians understand this. But the New Zealanders are more free in their statements, and the Australians are still connected with the US by the ANZUS military treaty (New Zealand and the US broke the military cooperation agreement back in 1987), so they are more cautious.”
Illegitimate investigation
The criminal investigation into the crash of the Malaysian Airlines Boeing MH17 has been going on for four years - since the creation of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) on August 4, 2014, which included representatives from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine.
On October 13, 2015, the Dutch Safety Board published the results of a technical investigation, in which it stated that the plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile, which is part of the Buk, Buk-M1 and Buk-M1-2 air defense systems. . In October 2016, the JIT stated that the rocket was launched from the area of the villages of Pervomayskoye and Snezhnoye, which was controlled by the DPR militias.
As an expert of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Vitaly Bordunov noted in an interview with RT, the JIT is, in principle, an illegitimate institution from the point of view of international law.
“If these were decent, normal people who really respected international law, they would have done the right thing. Ukraine should have organized an appropriate investigation together with Malaysia, which was not done,” the expert notes.
According to Bordunov, the crash of the Boeing MH17 over Donbas falls under Article 26 and Annex 13 of the 1944 Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation.
According to the document, Ukraine, as the country where the tragedy occurred, had to conclude an investigation agreement with Malaysia, which owned the aircraft, and not with the Netherlands, and register it according to ICAO rules. The agreement was also to be tested for compliance with the principles of the Chicago Convention. This procedure assumes control of the investigation by ICAO. None of this was done.
“This international commission was created outside the framework of international law, it is headed by a district police officer of a small Dutch town, where there are no specialists, nothing,” the expert emphasizes.
All this is typical for the current situation in the world, if anything, Russia is to blame. It doesn't matter if there's no evidence."
According to the expert, "ICAO is on the sidelines," and the investigation itself is more like a "conspiracy" to blame Russia.
In October 2016, Moscow handed over to the investigation primary radar data that cast doubt on the conclusions of the Joint Investigation Team about the launch of the missile that downed MH17.
“As both the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and representatives of the Almaz-Antey concern have already stated, when launching a rocket from Pervomaisky, this would be reflected on the radar data without fail. And this is not reflected on the radar, ”said Maria Zakharova, official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, in November 2018.
However, the investigation has not yet responded to these data.
“According to experts, all this is simply recorded, everything is visible in this scenario, but they did not pay attention to our data, as if they did not exist,” Bordunov said.
bias factor
On March 12, 2018, the Dutch investigative journalism program Zembla named the main suspects in the downing of the plane.
These are allegedly ex-Minister of Defense of the DPR Igor Strelkov, his subordinate Sergei Dubinsky and retired Colonel General of the Russian Armed Forces Nikolai Tkachev. Allegedly, these names were reported to the investigation by the Security Service of Ukraine.
Previously, journalists, including Australian ones, have repeatedly made revelations similar in terms of "sensationalism", however, according to Bordunov, "this is a fake, from a legal point of view, this evidence cannot be taken seriously."
The Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly noted the special attitude of the Joint Investigation Group towards Ukraine. In particular, there is no negative reaction to the fact that Kyiv hides some of the information: it refuses to provide data on the negotiations of military dispatchers and the location of the Ukrainian air defense systems of the Buk family. At the same time, Russia, unlike Ukraine, does not have the status of a full member of the JIT. In addition, the JIT uses as evidence materials from the “investigation” of the Bellingcat website, based on data from social networks.
“In legal language, this is called bias, unwillingness to figure out who did what, - says the ICAO expert. “And if so, then how long this investigation will last, I don’t know, there are games of their own here.”
On February 22, 2018, the Dutch Ministry of Justice announced the extension of the investigation until 2019, although earlier it was going to publish the results as early as early 2018. The department announced this in a report to Parliament.
According to the Dutch Ministry of Justice, until now, four years after the disaster, the remains of the victims' bodies are being collected. Nevertheless, despite the incompleteness of the investigation, The Hague "is preparing for the start of the trial." And although the Ministry of Justice of the Netherlands claims that it has read the report of Russian specialists, the conclusions drawn from it are not announced.
“There is no clarity on this issue,” Bordunov said. “There is only one conversation that Russia is to blame for everything.”
In October 2017, the Dutch Supreme Court allowed the government not to publish the results of the Joint Investigation Team's investigation.
“They cannot tell the truth,” says Mikhail Alexandrov. - If you confirm the non-involvement of Russia and the Donbass militias, then you have to blame Ukraine. And this will be a politically strong blow to Kyiv.”
According to the expert, as soon as the investigation admits that Ukraine shot down the plane, this one will call into question the relations of this country with Europe, which neither the US, nor NATO, nor the EU will do.
“They can’t lie openly, they can’t admit the truth either, so they are dragging it out,” Alexandrov summed up.
Investigators and detectives have identified 100 people who may have been involved in the disaster
The State Prosecutor's Office of the Netherlands, after falling in Ukraine, published a summary of the results of the investigation, which is being conducted by an international team of prosecutors and detectives. We publish the full text of the document and video of the reconstructions related to the crash of flight MH17.
“International Investigation Team: flight MH-17 was shot down by a Buk air defense missile fired from the area of the village of Pervomaisky.
Members of the International Investigation Team investigating the causes of the MH-17 crash on July 17, 2014 are convinced that they have irrefutable evidence that the airliner was shot down by a 9M38 anti-aircraft missile of the Buk anti-aircraft missile system. In addition, the investigation has evidence at its disposal that allows us to assert that the rocket launch site was a field in the area of \u200b\u200bthe town of Pervomaisky, which at that time was under the control of pro-Russian militants.
This was announced today during a presentation for relatives of those killed in the disaster. The states that are members of the International Investigation Team (Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine) are conducting a joint criminal investigation into the causes of the crash of the airliner.
Today, the investigation presented interim conclusions, including those regarding the weapon system from which the plane was shot down and the missile launch site. The investigation into those responsible for the crash continues.
Versions
Conducted expert studies, witness statements, data taken from mobile communication networks, satellite images, radar data, expert opinions and other evidence available to the investigation indicate that the aircraft was shot down by an anti-aircraft complex from the ground.
At the same time, it is noted that the International Investigation Group worked out other versions of the causes of the disaster. In particular, the investigation ruled out versions of an emergency situation and a terrorist attack on board the aircraft. On the contrary, the results of expert studies confirm the version that the aircraft was subjected to destructive influence from the outside. The version that the airliner was shot down in the air by a military aircraft was worked out, however, based on radar data, testimonies of witnesses and expert research data, it was declared untenable.
The International Investigation Team has ample radar data (from both Ukraine and Russia) that together provide a complete picture of the airspace over eastern Ukraine. Based on these data, it was established that at the time of the crash there were no aircraft capable of shooting down flight MH-17 nearby.
Last week, the Russian Federation claimed to have found "new" primary radar data, from which it also concludes that there were no other aircraft in the vicinity of the airliner that could have brought it down.
Means of destruction
The investigation showed that the MH17 flight was shot down by a 9M38 series missile used in the Buk anti-aircraft missile system. The investigation compared the fragments of the alleged means of destruction, found at the crash site, with the comparison material.
For this, various types of missiles of the 9M38 series of the Buk air defense missile system were dismantled and a comparative analysis of this reference material with metal fragments found at the crash site was carried out.
Video presentation: Means of destruction:
Forensic examination
The task of the expert group was to establish a connection between the discovered fragments and the circumstances of the downing of flight MH17. It was necessary to prove that these fragments were not in the territory under consideration before the catastrophe and were not placed there by third parties subsequently. The crash site was not fenced off for the purpose of being examined by forensic experts. Obviously, access to the crash site was free.
Two examples confirming the connection:
During the autopsy of the bodies of the flight crew members, several fragments of the warhead of the 9M38 missile of the Buk air defense missile system were found. On the surface of one of the fragments, traces of glass of a characteristic type used in the construction of the cockpit of a Boeing 777 were found. It was found that this fragment entered the aircraft from the outside through the cockpit window.
In one of the window openings, a metal fragment was found, identified as a fragment of a 9M38 missile of the Buk air defense missile system. This fragment was removed from the opening in a deformed form, which indicates that it hit the window as a result of a powerful explosion.
Video presentation: Forensic examination:
Transportation of air defense systems
The international investigation team managed to establish most of the route followed by the Buk anti-aircraft missile system to the territory of Ukraine, as well as the route of its movement in the opposite direction. This was made possible through the processing of information obtained from records of intercepted telephone conversations, witness statements, photographs and video materials posted on social networks, as well as video material that has not yet been made public and was received from a witness. The air defense system moved from the territory of Russia to the territory of Eastern Ukraine and was later transported on a white tractor of the Volvo brand and a trawl. This vehicle was accompanied by several cars and people in military uniform.
Rocket launch area
The final destination of the Buk air defense system was farmland near the village. Pervomaisky. This fact is confirmed by the information provided by a large number of witnesses who saw and managed to fix the contrail of a rocket launched with the help of the Buk air defense system, as well as its movement in the air. Another group of witnesses could establish a connection between the contrail and the Buk SAM system, which they saw earlier on July 17, 2014.
The investigation team worked with witnesses who saw a column of smoke, the Buk anti-aircraft missile system at the missile launch site near the village. Pervomaisky, as well as the rocket itself, after the moment of its launch.
Journalists interviewed witnesses who watched the rocket launch from a short distance from the launch site. These witnesses claim that they heard a very intense and high-pitched whistling sound.
After the launch of the missile was carried out with the help of the Buk air defense system, the Buk air defense system left the missile launch site under its own power. Some time later, she was again loaded onto a Volvo tractor and taken to the Russian border. At night, the convoy crossed the border in the direction of the Russian Federation.
Guilty persons
After we have determined what happened, the investigation is now focusing on identifying the perpetrators. It will take a long time to answer this question. So far, the International Investigation Team has identified about 100 people who may have been involved in the downing of MH17 or the transport of the BUK self-propelled launcher. The International Investigation Team received information about these people from various sources, such as intercepted telephone conversations and witness statements.
In addition, the command structure is being investigated. Who gave the order to bring the BUK self-propelled launcher to Ukraine and who ordered the downing of the MH17 flight? Did the BUK crew make the decision on their own, or did they follow the order of their command? These questions are important for qualifying crimes committed by suspected perpetrators.
The International Investigation Team wants to emphasize that it continues to seek additional information and evidence, including information about witnesses who were directly related to the crime. Ukrainian legislation provides for a shorter term of imprisonment, and under certain circumstances, exemption from criminal liability for those who will cooperate with the investigation.
In addition, the www.jitmh17.com website includes a number of intercepted telephone conversations. The International Investigation Team is requesting information on certain people who took part in these conversations. People who can identify these voices are asked to report this to the International Investigation Team.
The International Investigation Team will be actively involved in the investigation in the near future, and for these reasons, the agreement with the International Investigation Team was extended yesterday until January 1, 2018.”
Video reconstruction of the work "Buka:
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