A step closer to the true story of the plane shot down over Ukraine | The Washington Post

[sparkmann]

...From the moment of the catastrophe, Russian officials have attempted to spread confusion and disinformation, especially online, in a sort of road test for information-warfare methods that were subsequently used in the Ukraine conflict and beyond. Russian officials claimed falsely that the missile must have come from Ukraine’s military; or that MH17 was shot down by a Ukrainian fighter jet; or that the missile launcher was actually stationed in a Ukrainian-controlled area, not the region where Russia instigated a separatist war against Ukraine. In that last claim, Russian officials fabricated the text on a billboard seen in a video. To back up another claim, they doctored a satellite image. For years they have spread conspiracy theories, including a claim on Twitter that a Spanish air traffic controller saw two Ukrainian fighters in the air. The claim was a hoax. All the while, Russia has refused to cooperate with the international inquiries. On Friday, President Vladimir Putin continued stonewalling. Asked whether a Russian missile could have destroyed the plane, he said, “Of course not.” The Russian Defense Ministry said the new conclusions were based on “fakes.”

Not so. On Thursday, the Dutch-led inquiry, also involving Australia, Belgium, Ukraine and Malaysia, reported that the BUK missile and launcher originated from Russia’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, a unit based in Kursk.

Read More ›››



A step closer to the true story of the plane shot down over Ukraine | The Washington Post

A multi-nation criminal inquiry, led by the Dutch, declared this week that the surface-to-air missile that destroyed the plane was fired by a launcher based at a Russian military unit.

↱www.washingtonpost.com