Kiev Burning

[Cerebus]

I mentioned that a military transport plane was shot down earlier this week. It was a AN-26, and the Ukraine military is now saying they have radar data that shows that the missile that shot it down was launched from within Russia.

Oh. Boy.

[Cerebus]

Welp. Looks like Russian state media also reported that separatists had shot down a "cargo jet" earlier today, but has pulled all reports:

Editor of Russia Today and RIA-News agency Margarita Simonyan must think why she put news about downed by DPR "Ukrainian" cargo plane today

— Myroslava Petsa (@myroslavapetsa)

July 17, 2014

[Cerebus]

BBC World News reported yesterday that a BUK operated by Russian separatist forces was seen in Donetsk yesterday.

ETA: Launcher was seen in Snizhne, just east of Donetsk. MH17 impacted just outside Snizhne.

Edited July 17, 2014 by Cerebus

[Cerebus]

BBC World News reported yesterday that a BUK operated by Russian separatist forces was seen in Donetsk yesterday.

ETA: Launcher was seen in Snizhne, just east of Donetsk. MH17 impacted just outside Snizhne.

Take today.

[Cerebus]

Malaysian Airlines statement:

All 15 crew members were Malaysian.

Passengers:

154 Dutch nationals.

27 Aussies
23 Malaysians

11 Indonesians

6 UK

4 Germany

4 Belgium

3 Philippines

1 Canadian

47 "others"

Official Above

________________________

Speculation Below

I have been told, but this is not confirmed anywhere officially, that 23 of the others were Americans.

[Cerebus]

There are some pretty terrible pictures of the dead floating around on twitter and other places. I am not posting them. Please do not post them.

[Cerebus]

I was watching a Russian news feed and they clearly showed a pile of American passports.

Russian media is pretty despicable at this moment, they were opening up passports and showing all the bio data of the victims. Did they really need to show the photo and name of a 13 year old dutch girl, probably before her family has been officially notified?

[Cerebus]

Someone asked me if it was possible for the separatists to fire at a transport craft, and then have the missile accidentally lock onto the airliner? That is very unlikely. For one, the prop driven transports the Ukrainians have will be traveling ~350kn @ 20k meters. An airliner will be much faster (500+ kn) and much higher (30km). Second, these missiles aren't active radar, they are guided by the launcher.

Pure speculation:

Most likely scenario is at follows:

• BUK operator is either a poorly trained separatist, or one of the "green men." Green men are Russian special forces embedded with ethnic Russians in Ukraine and provide training and direction. Even the Green man is not going to be a true expert at using the BUK system, the separatist is going to be worse.
• The airline flys into radar range, broadcasting on its civilian transponder.
• The BUK operator can tell that the aircraft is not broadcasting the proper military International Friend or Foe (IFF) signal for the day/region.
• The BUK operator doesn't realize that the signal is in fact a civilian S or C band transponder. This is either because they are not properly trained, forgot their training, had a little too much wodka, or are just an idiot.
• BUK operator launches missile at target who he thinks is a Ukrainian military plane because it is not broadcasting the Russian IFF signal.
• Missile explodes near MH17, tearing it apart, scattering debris and bodies over 15 miles.
• Hit is reported to Igor Girkin aka Strelkov, the leader of the "separatists." He also happens to be a former KGB and current FSB agent. Who servers in the GRU. But he is totally 100% not a Russian asset, according to Russia.
• Girkin posts several news bulletins on social media announcing they have once again downed a Ukrainian cargo plane.
• Russian media begins to cover the event.
• Reports come in that MH 17 is missing.
• Separatists who are sent to find the debris report back it was a airliner.
• Girkin pulls his posts, Russian media soon follows.
• I assume who ever pushed the launch button now has a 7 x 18 makarov round in his head and has found his eternal rest under some freshly poured concrete.

[Cerebus]

Ukraine released this earlier today. Supposed recording of two separatists discussing the shootdown.

Bezler - "We just hit an airplane. The group "Minyora." It fell on Enakievo.

Geranin - "Airplanes? Where - airplanes?"

Bezler - "We went to find and photograph the downed plane."

Geranin - "How many minutes ago?"

Bezler - "About 30 minutes ago."


Grek - "Yes, Mayor"

Mayor - "So, these 'Chernukhinskie' hit a plane. From the Chernukhinskovo area. The Cossacks, that are at Chernukhino"

Grek - "The airplane fell from the sky in the area of the Peter-Paul Mine. The first "two-hundred." They found the first "two-hundred." It's civilian.

Mayor - "Well, what now?"

Grek - "Basically, there were civilians on board"

Mayor - "Were there a lot of people there?"

Grek - "Well @#$%, the wreckage fell all over the field"

Mayor - "Which board?"

Grek - "I'm not sure yet, I haven't been next to the beginning part yet. I just look there, where the first bodies fell. There are internal brackets, chairs, bodies"

Mayor - "Do they have any weapons at all?"

Grek - "None at all. Just civilian things. Medicine, toiletries, toilet paper..."

Mayor - "Do they have documents?"

Grek - "Yes, there's an Indian student from Thompson University."

[Cerebus]

Putin released a statement saying that no matter who shot down the plane, it is Ukraine's fault because they had restarted the offensive into the separatist areas.

Sounds like Putin understands that there is clear proof of who did it, and that proof is not going to point at the Ukrainians.

[Cerebus]

[Cerebus]

Der Speigel: Ursache für Flugzeugabsturz: Erste Spuren führen zu den Separatisten / Cause of plane crash: First traces lead to the separatists

Not my translation:

The aircraft had barely gone down when the pro-Kremlin webportal "Lifenews" proudly announced the shooting-down of a military airplane. The separatists had shot down an aircraft of the type AN-26, "around 17:30, close to the village of Rassnypnoje."

...

The commandant of the separatists in the area also commented. "Bulletins from Igor Strelkov" is the name of the webpage on the Russian Facebook-clone VK.com. They have been providing first-hand reports from the front for weeks, Strelkov has 130,000 Russian followers. At 17:50 their "Bulletin" triumphantly reports: "We have just shot down an AN-26 aircraft,", the wreckage lies "somewhere behind Schacht Progress. Continuing, almost triumphantly: "We had warned you: Don't fly through our skies." The separatists published a bideo where smoke can be seen rising from a field, in the background celebrations are heard.

[Cerebus]

Some shots from the inside of a BUK control deck. Obviosuly nothing that can be manned by amateurs:

[greenminer]

I thought I read earlier today that the commercial flight was flying 1000 ft above the restricted limit, meaning the "no-fly" zone extended upwards to 34,000 feet elevation, and this flight was @ 35K?

I'm going to bed and will read more of this thread this weekend.

Thanks for the updates, Cerebus.

[Rudy]

Hello folks. Things have been ramping up over the last week, even before MH17 went down. The US had already increased the pressure on Moscow by imposing tougher sanctions, but the EU has not followed suit.

MH17 changes the ball game.

This century's Lusitania?

[Cerebus]

Interesting image from FlightRadar24.

Notice every airliner now avoiding Eastern Ukraine like the plague.

[Cerebus]

I know some of you may be very upset that the separatists are in control of the crash site and are preventing international investigators from accessing the site, even shooting at them, but rest assured these are the fine gentlemen in charge:

That is the actual "Prime Minister" of Donetsk. Eastern European fashion sense is best fashion sense.

Edited July 19, 2014 by Cerebus

[Cerebus]

Alright lets put some names to faces here. This is Igor Girkin aka Strelkov:



You may remember him from such timeless classics such "Huzzah, we downed a Ukrainian transport! Oh, wait, we did no such thing!" and "I am a proud Crimean, no matter than you can prove I was born and lived in Moscow all my life!" Ending song titles with an exclamation point is a big Slav thing.

He served in KGB/FSB until he "retired" last year. He is a formed GRU (Russian Military Intelligence / Special Forces ) commander who reached the rank of Colonel. He has served in the Bosnian War, and both the First and Second Chechen Wars.

When you want to see an example of a Russian "green man" here it is. Despite having spent all his life in Russian Intelligence, he "retired" last year, shows up in Crimea, and is named the head of the separatists military forces in Crimea. After the election there, he pops up in Donetsk under the Strelkov alias and assumes control of their armed forces.

[UNT90]

But there connection to Moscow...

None...

[Cerebus]

I know piling on MH after their second large accident is all the vogue now, but they weren't the only ones flying over the area:

[Cerebus]

The Aussies are not soft selling this issue.

ABC: Tony Abbott says 'Russian-backed rebels' likely to blame on 'grim day' for Australia

Today Mr Abbott said the plane seemed to have been shot down "by Russian-backed rebels".

He indicated he believed that Russia or Russian arms played a part in the disaster.

"This look less like an accident than a crime," he told Parliament.

"The bullying of small countries by big ones, the trampling of justice and decency in the pursuit of national aggrandisement, and reckless indifference to human life should have no place in our world."

"Australia will be working at the United Nations Security Council for a binding resolution calling for a full and impartial investigation with full access to the site, with full access to the debris, with full access to the black box and with full access to all individuals who might be in a position to shed light on this terrible event," he added.
----
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said the shooting down of MH17 was shocking and bewildering.


VIDEO: Shorten vows to stand with Government over MH17
"Travelling at six miles' height, this is unimaginable. This is a violation of the rules of civilisation. This is a tyrannical, wild act," he said.

Mr Shorten said the Government had Labor's full support.

"The missile that brought down MH17 and the missiles that have claimed numerous other Ukrainian aircraft could not possibly be made by the people who've possibly fired them," he said.

"These separatist terrorists are obtaining these instruments of murder from elsewhere."

[Cerebus]

The day after the shootdown, Ukrainian journalists took video of what looks like a BUK on a flatbed headed towards the Russian border.

My guess it that it will be dismantled, along with any other AD systems the separatists hold, until this all blows over, then the Russians will just hand them more.

ETA: Note that BUK has one less missile than it should have.

Edited July 19, 2014 by Cerebus

[Cerebus]

Alright anther name to a face, this time Igor Bezler.

This is the same Bezler

I've posted about him in the past, if you'll remember he is the person who showed up to take command of a military police barracks and when questioned he identified himself as "a lieutenant colonel in the Russian Army."

[Cerebus]

HuffPo: Russia Today Anchor Resigns, Admits To Spreading 'Lies' For Putin

Corespondent Sara Firth's announcement came nearly two hours after she stated on Twitter that RT anchors "do work for Putin" and spread "lies," in a conversation with RT London correspondent Polly Boiko. Firth alleged that the network asks its anchors to "obscure the truth," and now she is saying she's had enough.

More of that Russian propaganda machine I posted about pages and pages ago.

[Cerebus]

Guardian: Cover-up - Ukraine rebels destroying all links to MH17 air atrocity

Pro-Russia separatist groups in eastern Ukraine are hastily covering up all links to the Buk missile battery suspected to have been used to shoot down the Malaysia Airlines passenger plane, according to western-based defence and intelligence specialists.

As the UN security council called for a "full, thorough independent international investigation" into the downing of the plane, concern that a cover-up was under way was fuelled by a standoff at part of the crash site between observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and rebel gunmen, which ended with a warning shot being fired.

Postings on rebel websites immediately after the crash boasted of having shot down what they claimed was an Antonov Ukrainian military transport plane, but these have since been deleted.
---
The OSCE was trying to gain access to one part of the large crash site but the commander of a rebel unit, known as Commander Glum, blocked them. After the warning shot, the OSCE convoy departed.

There is also confusion over the black boxes and other devices apparently salvaged from the plane. A rebel military commander initially said he was considering what to do with them, while another rebel leader, Aleksandr Borodai, contradicting his colleague, said the rebels had no black boxes or any other devices.

The Ukrainian interior ministry added to fears of a cover-up when it released video purportedly taken by police showing a truck carrying a Buk missile launcher with one of its four missiles apparently missing, rolling towards the Russian border at dawn . The video could not be independently verified.
---
Video footage allegedly taken on Thursday appeared to support the idea that pro-Russia separatists had been to blame. It showed a Buk battery seemingly being moved in the rebel-held area between Snizhne and Torez close to the crash site. A still picture allegedly shows a missile in vertical launch mode beside a supermarket in Torez. However, the location has still to be established.
---
At the Pentagon, officials said a motive for the operation had yet to be determined, as had the chain of command. One said it would be "surprising to us" if pro-Russia separatists were able to operate the Buk missile battery without Russian technical support. The Ukrainian military confirmed it has Buk batteries but said it had none in the area the missile was fired.
---
Igor Sutyagin, a Russian military specialist at the London-based Royal United Services Institute, said he regarded the tape recordings as genuine, as well as postings on social media pointing the finger at pro-Russia separatists or Russia itself.

But getting evidence would be very difficult. He said: "A decision has been made on the Russian side to hide their tracks. It will be hard to find the battery." Satellites might have been able to catch something, but the trail from the missile would have been very short, Sutyagin said.