MH17 And Ukraine - Obfuscation and Domestic Audiences

One theory that about Russia's involvement in the conflict in Eastern Ukraine is that its involvement got heavier after the downing of Malaysian flight 17 by the rebels.  Russia's increased involvement was not due to wanting more territory, but out of fear of what the rebels that they had released and enabled would do to Russia's reputation if left unchecked.  After the bloodless coup and takeover of Crimea, the events in Eastern Ukraine got very bad very quickly.  The downing of the flight was a PR nightmare.

The Dutch issued a report on the event this week that identifies the missile that took down the plane as a BUK missile.  The report is thorough and took a year to compile because of the many technical difficulties in obtaining the plane, and analyzing the data.  RFE/RL has some great articles on how this report has been obfuscated, ignored, and fought by the Russian propaganda machine at every turn.

A great aspect of the reporting is the step-by-step account of how the Dutch investigators rebuffed Russian efforts to soften language (LINK):

Appendices published (here and here) with the Dutch Safety Board’s report show that Russia attempted to convince investigators to invoke "other scenarios," such as the possibility that Flight MH17 was struck by an air-to-air missile. 

Critics have accused Moscow of floating the air-to-air-missile and other theories in order to deflect attention from substantial evidence indicating the Boeing 777 was downed by a Russian-made surface-to-air missile system known as a Buk, fired from an area controlled by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. 

But the documents released with the report show that, behind the scenes, the Dutch Safety Board also rejected alternative scenarios proposed by Russia as essentially baseless before concluding that a Buk missile exploded next to the Boeing 777 and sent it crashing to the ground, killing all 298 people on board. 

With arcane discussions of physics, telemetry, and military technology, the conclusions of the 15-month investigation largely match up with theories put forth by Ukraine, the United States, and other nations.

Read the full article with the full outline of the charges and counter-charges.

Another interesting development is that the Buk manufacturer immediately put out their own report denying the Dutch version (LINK):

The Russian company that manufactures the Buk ground-to-air missile system plans to issue a report on the July 2014 downing of a Malaysian Airlines passenger jet over eastern Ukraine on October 13, the same day the Dutch Safety Board plans to issue the results of its investigation into the incident. 

Almaz-Antei said in a press release on October 8 that it had carried out the detonation of a Buk missile under a decommissioned Boeing passenger jet in a "life-scale, real-time" experiment as part of its investigation into the disaster. 

The company said that preliminary results from the experiment support the conclusions that the firm presented in June -- namely, that the plane was shot down by a Buk missile fired from territory controlled by the Ukrainian military. 

This has now become a he-said, she-said battle over telemetry and math.  The upshot is that with the competing claims, Russia can still deny its involvement in the incident, even if other evidence points to that very involvement (LINK LINK).

If Moscow is really hoping only to keep its own citizens convinced that it is not operating in Ukraine - it seems to be working.  Follow this link to see responses to the BUK report by Muscovites.

Russia and Ukraine Links - Tanks and Missile Launchers Edition

A few weeks ago I put up some links about Russia and Ukraine (LINK).  I am adding to that collection again today. 

Russian tanks in the crisis (LINK).  It is getting harder and harder for Russia to deny that it is materially supporting the rebels in the breakaway region.  The article is a fascinating study in the use of open sources and social media to gather intelligence.  While this intelligence can be shared easily, since it doesn't involve disclosing classified sources or methods, the danger is that it feeds into the narrative of the Kremlin about US misinformation and propaganda regarding its role. Winning the propaganda game is very difficult for the defensive side. Not only are Russian tanks being used, but the training and showmanship associated with Russia.  Russia has been running tank olympics for the past few years, and the rebels did the same thing with their tanks a few weeks ago (LINK).



The same group that is finding evidence of Russian tanks and soldiers in Ukraine is releasing evidence of Russia's BUK missiles being used to shoot down the Malaysian Airlines jet in July 2014. (LINK).

Bellingcat, which analyzes information available on the Internet, said on October 8 that the Buk antiaircraft system involved in the incident can be traced from the Russian city of Kursk in June 2014 to a field outside the Ukrainian town of Snizhne in Donetsk Oblast on the day of the flight MH17 disaster. 

The next day, the launcher from the same Buk system -- with only three missiles instead of the normal compliment of four -- was documented to be near the Russian border in Luhansk Oblast, the report says. 

"We have looked at all the open-source investigation we've done over the last 18 months and it seems a pretty firm conclusion that the Russian military provided the missile launcher that shot down MH17, that the missile was launched from outside of Snizhne," Bellingcat founder and director Eliot Higgins says. "And we were able to track the Buk missile launcher back to the actual unit who provided it, the 53rd Brigade." 

Higgins added that Bellingcat has forwarded information about the individual members of the 53rd Brigade who might have been involved in shooting down MH17 to authorities investigating the incident.

 Is it any wonder that Ukraine now views Moscow as the main aggressor in their new military doctrine (LINK)? I mentioned in an earlier post about Russia's involvement in Syria that Putin is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy about the encirclement of Russia by NATO (LINKhttp://grimyard.blogspot.com/2015/10/russia-and-syria-arms-related-issues.html). He has only himself to blame.