Malaysian airliner crashes in E. Ukraine

[Storm Shadow]

http://abcnews.go.com/International/ukrainian-jets-shot-defense-ministry/story?id=24674661

Ukraine Says Two Jets Downed By Missiles Fired From Russia

Two Ukrainian military jets were shot down today according to Ukrainian defense officials who charged that they were downed by missiles fired from the Russian side of the border.

The planes, identified as Sukhoi SU-25 fighter jets, were hit in the Donetsk region of the country not far from
where the Malaysian Airlines flight 17 was knocked out of the sky last week. It is also where Ukrainian forces are battling separatist rebels outside the city of Donetsk, one of the last separatist strongholds.
The fate of the planes' pilots was not immediately known.

It happened at 12:30 p.m. Ukraine time (5:30 a.m. ET) while the planes were flying at roughly 6,000 feet, said a spokesperson for the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council.

The spokesman said missiles were fired from Russian territory and repeated himself saying, “from across the border” in Russia.

The Ukrainian rebels are ethnic Russians and the U.S. and other Western countries have accused Russia of fomenting instability in Ukraine and aiding the rebels by supplying weaponry and volunteers.
The Sukhoi SU-25 are single seat combat fighter jets. That same type of jet was shot down by a missile July 16.

The shoot-down of the jets over the town of Saur Mogila came in the same rebellious eastern part of the country where MH17 was shot down, killing 298 people on board. The MH17 flight was believed to have been shot down by a BUK anti-aircraft missile system.

Shortly before word of today's shoot-down came, the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt told ABC News that he's very concerned Russia has not stopped the flow of heavy weapons into eastern Ukraine where ethnic Russians are trying to break away from Ukraine.

The Slow, Sad Journey Home for Victims of Malaysia Airlines Tragedy
Malaysia Airlines Wreckage 'Significantly Altered'

Fighting is currently taking place on the outskirts of Donetsk, one of the separatists last strongholds.
“We are very concerned that Russia has not pulled back on the flow of heavy weapons,” Pyatt said. “What needs to happen is Russia needs to stop sending weapons and fighters across the border.”

 

[Pinball Wizard]

I say send the Ukanies one B2 Stealth. See if that helps?

Russians understand hardball.

 

[Hermanthegerman]

Its bitter, but in this Moment I believe ist an older conflict, it is between catholics and orthodox christs. Like Serbia against Croatia, same old Story.

 

[armedoldhippy]

in an interview with Reuters that was conducted in Donetsk today, a separatist commander named Alexander Khodakovsky said that the rebel militia had a BUK system there at the time of the Malaysia airliners downing, but blamed Kiev for the conditions that caused it. Khodakovsky also suggested to the interviewer that it may have been sent back across the border into Russia after the jetliner was attacked. if true,this will not sit well with conspiracy theorists that see CIA agents & US/UK duplicity as the cause of everything that goes wrong in the world, including bad weather, indigestion, & plagues of grasshoppers, but it does align with what I thought from the beginning. someone that did not know how to tell a military transport aircraft from a Boeing 777 launched a missile that killed 298 innocent people and have spent the last few days trying to hide the fact much as a cat scratches trying to cover up its latest turd.

 

[Hubbleman]

Its interesting : to Ukrainian jets get shot down?? So now all the finger pointing is on russia?

Ukrainians can say oh look we also lost out planes, who ever did it also shot down the airliner?? Not us! So now all the blame is on russia?

 

[gaiusmarius]

the Ukrainian gov can not be believed, they are in the middle of a war, anything they say about this needs to be proven before it's taken as fact. how stupid do they think the Russians are? i mean really, after all this they are shooting down more planes from accross the border? yeah right.

interesting post armedoldhipy, i have yet to see the interview with Alexander Khodakovsky you speak of. but that would finally amount to some real proof if it's genuine. nothing like a confession to prove the point. although i still don't see why the US has not shown us some satellite pics showing what happened? got a link to that interview?

 

[D. B. Doober]

there's no conspiracy here, the seperatists shoot down Ukranian fighter jets every night. It was an accident.

 

[JKD]

Gaius - here is the interview Armedoldhippy was speaking of:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014...sis-commander-exclusive-idUSKBN0FS1V920140723

 

[bentom187]

CNN vs. RT

CNN Interview with RT Anchor Explodes: (FULL) Chris Cuomo vs Peter Lavelle.
[YOUTUBEIF]92kG2tMBR40[/YOUTUBEIF]

Enjoy.

 

[ElusiveQuark]

With all the focus on the region, is it plausible that the US and/or it's allies don't have image or other data evidencing exactly what happened? We will be told whatever fits the agenda. It seems that either the evidence doesn't support Russian liability or it's being held back as leverage against Putin. In any event it appears Russia is the only one that brought guns to the fight.

 

[bentom187]

Meanwhile, Ukraine's Government Collapses, PM Yatsenyuk Resigns

As if Ukraine was not struggling through enough turmoil currently, Bloomberg reports that the fragile coalition government has collapsed after two parties quit. The UDAR and Svoboda parties said they’d leave the government and seek a snap parliamentary ballot. Tempers have been fraying recently as numerous brawls have broken out in parliament ahead of President Poroshenko's pledge to call elections this year. All we have to do now is find out who Washington would like to see in power? The end result: Prime Minister Yatsenyuk just resigned. The big question now is what will the IMF do about the remaining tranches of its loans? Via BBG:


•*YATSENYUK RESIGNS
•*YATSENYUK SAYS HE RESIGNS BECAUSE OF COALITION COLLAPSE
•*YATSENYUK SAYS HE WON'T CALL FOR A NEW COALITION
•*YATSENYUK SAYS HE RESIGNS ALSO BECAUSE GOVT LAWS FAILED TO PASS
•*UKRAINE SPEAKER TURCHYNOV CALLS FOR INTERIM PREMIER
How The Ukrainian government has settled these problems in the past.

[YOUTUBEIF]06AahX-gcbI[/YOUTUBEIF]


As Bloomberg reports,

Ukraine’s coalition collapsed after two parties quit during a months-long pro-Russian insurgency in the nation’s east that downed a Malaysian Air jet last week.



The UDAR and Svoboda parties said they’d leave the government and seek a snap parliamentary ballot, according to statements today on their websites. Under the constitution, the former Soviet republic has 30 days to form a new coalition or it must call early elections. The existing cabinet will remain in place in the meantime.



Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s government, took over the country in February after pro-European street protests prompted Kremlin-backed President Viktor Yanukovych to flee to Russia. Yanukovych’s successor, billionaire Petro Poroshenko, had pledged to call parliamentary elections this year.



“We will probably have snap parliamentary elections at the end of October,” Yuriy Yakymenko, the head of political research at the Razumkov Center, said by phone from Kiev today. “This option was probably agreed on by political parties seeking elections and the president.”



The government and the current parliament will keep working until new institutions are formed, he said. Olga Lappo, Yatsenyuk’s spokeswoman, declined to comment when reached by phone today.

*

Ukrainian bonds are tumbling on the news...

 

[gaiusmarius]

agreed we are being told what fits the agenda. that interview with the rebel leader where you don't even know what are direct quotes and what are interpretations of his words. makes clear if you read the whole thing, that he really doesn't know, he is speculating. so i'd say as far as confessions go, it's not much of one.

we all heard reports a while back that the rebels captured a buk system from Ukrainian military, but the Ukrainians said this system had been disabled before it fell into rebel hands.

we also have the statement by the prosecutor general in Kiev made right after this horrible event, who said that the militias did not have a working buk system.

have you noticed how US intelligence is now saying that it wasn't Russia responsible for supplying or launching this missile system. seems they are backing off the supposed mountain of evidence that it was Putin.

take note that they offer no evidence for this either, it's just like hey take our word for it we are credible, we never sent our ambassador to the UN with Fake evidence to tell a bunch of lies about weapons of mass destruction so we could invade Iraq. we never lie to score political points, sarcasm off!

as was implied earlier in the thread, maybe we will never get the truth, but we might well, there are whistle blowers and conscientious employees that have access to the satellite images i'm sure, hopefully they will leak them if the US gov doesn't do the right thing and show their satellite surveillance footage. now a days it's harder then ever to keep the masses believing in a lie.

we also need the cockpit voice recordings, as the tower radio communications were seized by the Ukrainian security services right after the plane went down, this was confirmed in the bbc and makes the voice recorder even more important.

it is a real shame they gave the black boxes to British investigators, some international aviation investigation organization would have been much more trusted by the Russians. seems like a bad judgment call to let those investigate the black boxes who have already put all the blame on one party.

anyway here is a video that was posted about a month ago, in the second half she tells an interesting tale which might shed some light on this event in the end it does remain a very plausible possibility that it was indeed the rebels, this might explain how it actually went down.

[YOUTUBEIF]aKKoKmUtQXE[/YOUTUBEIF]

 

[bentom187]

That certainly is a thought provoking video. It may be possible that's what that SU-25 plane was doing close behind the airliner.

 

[bentom187]

Get called out on one lie, make a new one to get to your end's.

Russia Accuses US Of Fabricating MH17 Evidence As US Reveals More "Evidence" Of Russian Military Involvement

The farce of facts continues to grow as Ukraine's national security council head says US is wrong (in finding no link to Russia) and claims to have proof MH17 was shot down by Russians (from BBG)

•EXPERT PRELIM CONCLUSION IS MH17 SHOT BY RUSSIANS: PARUBIY
•EXPERT PRELIM VIEW IS RUSSIAN MILITARY, WEAPON DOWNED MH17
•UKRAINIAN NATL SECURITY COUNCIL HEAD PARUBIY POSTS ON TWITTER
•PARUBIY COMMENTS ON PRELIM CONCLUSIONS FROM `INTL EXPERTS'
and then the US State Department unleashes another statement of alleged 'proof' that Russia is sending rockets to separatists and firing on Ukraine's military from within Russia. Of course, while no 'evidence' has been offered, we are sure this is all backed by YouTube clips and Tweets that 'prove' it is fact.

•RUSSIA SENDING MULTIPLE ROCKET LAUNCHERS TO SEPARATISTS: HARF
•ARTILLERY FIRING FROM RUSSIA AT UKRAINE MILITARY FORCES: HARF

Here's the video proof that Russia is firing into Ukraine (allegedly) - click image for link

http://vk.com/video110600798_169054941

And then Russia hit back, blasting Washington's claims that pro-Russian rebels fired a missile that hit the plane on July 17 "mostly cited social networks" and did not correspond to reality.

suggested on Thursday that the United States was trying to fabricate evidence that separatists in eastern Ukraine shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17.



Anatoly Antonov, deputy defence minister, said Washington's claims that pro-Russian rebels fired a missile that hit the plane on July 17 "mostly cited social networks" and did not correspond to reality.



Alexander Yakovenko, Russia's ambassador to Britain, also poured scorn on the widespread belief that Moscow is supplying the rebels, saying: "Russia doesn't supply weapons to local de facto (separatist) authorities in eastern Ukraine" and that "no evidence whatsoever has been presented that the Russian government has been doing this".



"So where is this evidence?" he asked on the Rossiya-24 channel. "Why is it not presented to the public? Is it, if I may say so, still being finished off?"

The US using fabricated social media as a pretext to start a war? Where have we seen this before? Oh yes, last summer, when the Obama administration brought the world to the edge of all out war over the Syrian "chemical attack", an attack which Seymor Hersh subsequently showed was nothing but a false flag provocation.

 

[armedoldhippy]

so i'd say as far as confessions go, it's not much of one.(who called it a confession?) we all heard reports a while back that the rebels captured a buk system from Ukrainian military, but the Ukrainians said this system had been disabled before it fell into rebel hands. (so you think it could not have been repaired?)

we also have the statement by the prosecutor general in Kiev made right after this horrible event, who said that the militias did not have a working buk system. (would he have known if one was brought in from Russia?)

have you noticed how US intelligence is now saying that it wasn't Russia responsible for supplying or launching this missile system. seems they are backing off the supposed mountain of evidence that it was Putin. (the article I read said there was no proof. not the same thing as saying it COULD NOT have come from Russia)

take note that they offer no evidence for this either, it's just like hey take our word for it we are credible, we never sent our ambassador to the UN with Fake evidence to tell a bunch of lies about weapons of mass destruction so we could invade Iraq. we never lie to score political points, sarcasm off! (you want to talk about Iraq war, why not Korea airliner 007?)

as was implied earlier in the thread, maybe we will never get the truth, but we might well, there are whistle blowers and conscientious employees that have access to the satellite images i'm sure, hopefully they will leak them if the US gov doesn't do the right thing and show their satellite surveillance footage. now a days it's harder then ever to keep the masses believing in a lie.

we also need the cockpit voice recordings, as the tower radio communications were seized by the Ukrainian security services right after the plane went down, this was confirmed in the bbc and makes the voice recorder even more important. (what, you want to hear a pilot scream "holy fuck, its a missile!")

it is a real shame they gave the black boxes to British investigators, some international aviation investigation organization would have been much more trusted by the Russians. seems like a bad judgment call to let those investigate the black boxes who have already put all the blame on one party.
(the airline & the country of origin & that had the most citizens on the plane picked the UK to look at it. what, you thought they would send it to Russia? FAIL!)
anyway here is a video that was posted about a month ago, in the second half she tells an interesting tale which might shed some light on this event in the end it does remain a very plausible possibility that it was indeed the rebels, this might explain how it actually went down. (or not)

[youtubeif]aKKoKmUtQXE[/youtubeif]

many interpretations available.

 

[ElusiveQuark]

it is a real shame they gave the black boxes to British investigators, some international aviation investigation organization would have been much more trusted by the Russians. seems like a bad judgment call to let those investigate the black boxes who have already put all the blame on one party.

Why did the British get the black box? That black box now means nothing in real evidentiary terms. It's totally compromised.

 

[gaiusmarius]

fair points, the one thing i would say is that yes would have been better to send the black boxes to some place like Switzerland, a totally neutral party. the EU, specially Britain has been backing Kiev just like the US have, so in my humble opinion they are what you'd call involved parties, or at the least they are parties with an interest in the outcome.

as far as i can see i said they should be sent to an international investigation organization, i didnt say they should send them to Russia to be fair. i was just saying that if i wanted my investigation to be as impartial as possible i would look for an impartial investigator. now the Russians will be able to cast doubt on the investigation if it turns out against them, that is all i was saying.

 

[gaiusmarius]

it is a real shame they gave the black boxes to British investigators, some international aviation investigation organization would have been much more trusted by the Russians. seems like a bad judgment call to let those investigate the black boxes who have already put all the blame on one party.

Why did the British get the black box? That black box now means nothing in real evidentiary terms. It's totally compromised.

there we have a basic understanding of the laws of evidence in such situations. never choose involved parties to do the investigation, it just looks bad.

 

[ElusiveQuark]

Hey Gauis - where did you find the aviation rule re: black box to country w most casualties designee?

Unfortunately, the only way to have appeased everyone was to appoint custodians from both sides and march that thing directly to a warehouse and check it's contents in full view of the world. That could have been an "ah ha" moment for the ages but probably not.

 

[gaiusmarius]

i feel the need to share this, all in all some very good points are raised.

10 more questions Russian military pose to Ukraine, US over MH17 crash

Published time: July 21, 2014 23:23
Edited time: July 23, 2014 12:36
Get short URL
Head of General Staff of the Armed Forces Lt. Gen. Andrey Kartopolov ( left) and chief of the Air Force Main Staff Lt. Gen. Igor Makushev ( right) at a media conference in Moscow, July 21 (RIA Novosti / Vadim Savitsky)


Trends
Malaysia MH17 plane crash, Ukraine turmoil

Tags
Accident, Intelligence, Military, Planes, Russia, USA, Ukraine

Russia has released military monitoring data, which shows Kiev military jets tracking the MH17 plane shortly before the crash - and posed yet another set of questions to Ukraine and the US over the circumstances of the tragedy.

Military officials – chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces Lt. Gen. Andrey Kartopolov and chief of the Air Force Main Staff Lt. Gen. Igor Makushev - posed a number of questions to Kiev and Washington concerning the possible causes of the catastrophe in Eastern Ukraine that killed almost 300 people last Thursday.

1. Why did the MH17 plane leave the international corridor?

“Please note that the plane stayed within the corridor until it reached Donetsk but then it deviated from the route to the north,” said Kartopolov.

2. Was MH17 leaving the route a navigation mistake or was the crew following instructions by Ukrainian air traffic controllers in Dnepropetrovsk?

“The maximum deviation from the left border of the corridor was 14 km. Following that, we can see the plane maneuvering to return to the corridor, yet the Malaysian crew did not get a chance to complete the maneuver. At 17.20, the plane began to lose speed, and at 17.23 it disappeared from Russian radars.”

3. Why was a large group of air defense systems deployed to the militia-held area if the self-defense forces have no planes?

“As far as we know, the Ukrainian military had three or four air defense battalions equipped with Buk-M1 SAM systems deployed in the vicinity of Donetsk on the day of the crash. This system is capable of hitting targets within the range of 35 km at the altitude of up to 22 km.”

Buk missile defense units in Donetsk Region, 5km north of Donetsk city, on July 14, 2014. (RIA Novosti)

Buk missile defense units in Donetsk Region, 5km north of Donetsk city, on July 14, 2014. (RIA Novosti)

4. Why did Kiev deploy BUK missile systems on the edge of militia-controlled zones directly before the tragedy?

“We have satellite photos of the places where Ukraine had its air defense units deployed in the southeastern parts of the country. The first three photos were made on July 14. The first photo shows Buk launchers 8 km northwest of Lugansk. You can clearly see a TELAR and two TELs. The second photo shows radars 5 km north of Donetsk. You can see two TARs along with other equipment and technical structures. The third photo shows air defense systems north of Donetsk. You can clearly see a TELAR launcher and about 60 military and auxiliary vehicles, tents for vehicles and other structures.

“Here’s a photo of the same area made on July 17. Please note that the launcher has disappeared. The fifth photo shows a battery of Buk missiles at the village of Zaroshchenskoye 50 km east of Donetsk and 8 km south of Shakhtyorsk on the morning of the same day. The sixth photo shows the same area on July 18. As you can see, the battery has left.”

No Buk missile defense units in Donetsk Region, 5km north of Donetsk city, on July 17, 2014. (RIA Novosti)


5. On the day of the crash Kiev intensified Kupol-M1 9S18 radar activity, key BUK system components. Why?

“Also, July 17 saw increased activity on the part of Ukraine’s Kupol-M1 9S18 radars, which are part of the Buk system. Here on this chart you see that there were seven radars operating on July 15, eight radars operating on July 16, and nine radars operating on July 17 in the area. Then, starting with July 18, the intensity of radar activities radically decreased, and now there are no more than two or three radars operating a day. The reason behind this is yet to be found.”

6. What was a military plane doing on the route intended for civilian flights?

“There were three civilian planes in the area performing their regular flights at this time. There was a flight from Copenhagen to Singapore at 17:17, there was a flight from Paris to Taipei at 17:24, and then there was the flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.”

“Also, Russian monitoring systems registered that there was a Ukrainian Air Force jet, probably Su-25, climbing and approaching the Malaysian Boeing.”

“The Su-25 was 3-5 km away from the Malaysian plane. Su-25 is capable of climbing to the altitude of 10,000 meters for a short period of time. Its standard armament includes R60 air-to-air missiles, which are capable of locking and hitting targets from 12 km and which are guaranteed to hit the target from the distance of 5 km.”



(RIA Novosti / Vadim Savitsky)

7. Why was the military jet flying at so close to a passenger plane?

“At 17:21’35, with [the Boeing’s] velocity having dropped to 200 kilometers per hour, a new mark detecting an airborne object appears at the spot of the Boeing’s destruction. This new airborne object was continuously detected for the duration of four minutes by the radar stations Ust-Donetsk and Buturinskaya. An air traffic controller requested the characteristics of the new airborne object, but was unable to get any readings on its parameters – most likely due to the fact that the new aircraft was not equipped with a secondary surveillance radar transponder, which is a distinctive feature of military aircraft,” said Makushev.

“Detecting the new aircraft became possible as it started to ascend. Further changes in the airborne object’s coordinates suggest that it was hovering above the Boeing 777’s crash site, monitoring of the situation.

“Ukrainian officials earlier claimed that there were no Ukrainian military aircraft in the area of the crash that day. As you can see, that is not true.”

8. Where did the launcher – from the video circulated by Western media and showing a Buk system being moved allegedly from Ukraine to Russia – come from? As the video was made on the territory controlled by Kiev, where was the launcher being transported?

“I’d like to say that the information we have presented here is based on objective and reliable data from various technical systems – unlike the groundless accusations made against Russia,” said Kartopolov.


[YOUTUBEIF]L4HJmev5xg0[/YOUTUBEIF]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4HJmev5xg0

“For example, media circulated a video supposedly showing a Buk system being moved from Ukraine to Russia. This is clearly a fabrication. This video was made in the town of Krasnoarmeisk, as evidenced by the billboard you see in the background, advertising a car dealership at 34 Dnepropetrovsk Street. Krasnoarmeysk has been controlled by the Ukrainian military since May 11.”

9. Where is it right now? Why are some of the missiles missing on the launcher? When was the last time a missile was launched from it?

Screenshot from video posted on Ukraine’s Ministry of Interior account, showing a Buk system supposedly being moved from Ukraine to Russia with two out of three missiles.

(it's to be seen in the clip, so i didnt add it, 5 pic limit)

10. Why haven’t US officials revealed the evidence supporting claims that the MH17 was shot down by a missile launched by the militia?

“US officials claim they have satellite photographs proving the Malaysian airliner was shot down by a missile launched by the militia. But no one has seen these photographs so far. As far as we know, there was indeed a US satellite flying over southeastern Ukraine on July 17 from 17:06 to 17:21 Moscow time.

“This satellite is part of an experimental system designed to track and monitor the launches of missiles of various ranges. If our US colleagues have imagery from this satellite, they should release it for the international community to examine it in detail. This may be a coincidence, but the US satellite flew over Ukraine at exactly the same time when the Malaysian airliner crashed.”

Buk missile defense units in Zaroschinskoe, 50km south of Donetsk city and 8km south of Shakhtyorsk, on July 17, 2014.Photo courtesy of the Russian Defense Ministry

Buk missile defense units in Zaroschinskoe, 50km south of Donetsk city and 8km south of Shakhtyorsk, on July 17, 2014.Photo courtesy of the Russian Defense Ministry

This is not the first time Russia brings up questions on the plane crash. No explanations have followed with Kiev insisting they have full evidence of Russia being behind the attack, but so far only releasing tapes.

The USA, putting the blame on the self-defense forces, has yet refused to release any intelligence material. On Monday State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf described Russia’s statements as “propaganda and misinformation” - but when reporters asked her whether Washington would be releasing their intelligence and satellite data, Harf only replied "may be." So far the US has been backing its statements by social media and "common sense."

http://rt.com/news/174496-malaysia-crash-russia-questions/