generalspeaking

That Unfortunate Incident

"We know that these separatists have received a steady flow of support from Russia. This includes arms and training. It includes heavy weapons and it includes anti-aircraft weapons.
"So there has to be a credible international investigation into what happened. The UN Security Council has endorsed this recommendation and we will hold all its members including Russia to their word to facilitate that investigation."
"Evidence indicates that the plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile that was launched from an area that was controlled by Russian-backed separatists inside Ukraine."
U.S. President Barack Obama

"Because of the technical complexity of the SA-11, it is unlikely that the separatists could effectively operate the system without assistance from knowledgeable personnel. Thus we cannot rule out assistance from Russian personnel in operating the systems."
Samantha Powers, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations

In June, ethnic Russian separatists attacked a Ukrainian military base at Avdiivka where surface-to-air missiles were housed. Toward the end of the same month the 'Donetsk People's Army' boasted on Russian national television of its exploits in seizing control of a Buk missile system, a boast that the Ukraine Defence Ministry took pains to deny that it had allowed any such surface-to-air missile system to fall into rebel hands.

On July 14, a Ukrainian Antonov-26 military transport was shot down over Izvaryne, flying at 6,500 metres, and two days later a Ukrainian Sukhoi su-5 was also shot down, near Amvrosiivka. A day later journalists had sight of a launcher looking just like the Buk missile system close to the rebel held town of Snizhne. That day in the early evening radar contact with Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was lost, flying over Ukraine.

Fifteen minutes after radar contact was lost with the Boeing 777 the Russian leader of the rebel Donetsk People's Army, Igor Strelkov, claimed on VKontakte, a popular Russian social media site that his troops had shot down a second Ukrainian AN-25. Ten minutes later the comment was deleted following reports of the disappearance of Flight M17.

And that evening Ukrainian security intelligence released intercepted mobile conversations between Russian intelligence and a rebel commander of the downing of doomed flight MH17.

Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin in calling for an international commission to investigate the crash, also remarked on the matter of Ukraine allowing civilian aircraft to fly over the skies where violent clashes and airstrikes had taken place. He took the opportunity to task investigators to determine whether Ukraine had ignored its international obligation ensuring safety of the flying public and in the process to "prevent disasters from occurring."

A delegation of some 30 official members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe appeared at the crash site the following afternoon. Rebel militiamen at the village of Hrabove permitted the OSCE official team only to perform a partial, superficial inspection of the main site, let alone the 20 square kilometre representing the entire site, strewn with the bodies of the 298 passengers of flight MH17.

The site has not been secured. Evidence is known to have been spirited away, including the black box which Igor Strelkov, the Russian rebel leader, claims they were unable to locate, but which was forwarded on to Moscow. Rebels and locals are able to wander about freely at the scene f the disaster, occasionally selecting objects they retrieve as souvenirs. Reporters have noted the presence of drunken thugs dominating the scene.

Aviation analyst Gerald Feldzer commented from Paris that investigators would attempt to "find the debris of the missile in question and determine the trajectory". It's a fairly safe bet at this point that the debris has been tidied up, any parts of the missile that would have been found would have been discreetly removed; ergo, no missile, no smoking gun; the plane had mysteriously self-immolated.

"That won't determine who did it", he added, unless investigators are able to find a satellite photo or radar records of the missile. It's another safe bet that both have been found, and a nervous Europe and America are sitting on them, wondering how next to react. Accusations too readily proven amount to an immense escalation of a regional conflict threatening to expand to the international stage. And who wants another world war?

Even the prospect of prosecuting European and North American outrage by further isolating and sanctioning Russia is one viewed tepidly at best by Western Europe unwilling to further disturb its still weak economy, dependent on Russia with its financial holdings integrated into that of Europe, and everyone anxious to play nice in the face of disaster.

Labels: Aggression, Atrocity, Conflict, Russia, Secession, Ukraine

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, July 19, 2014