DISINFO: MH-17: Russia gave evidence to Joint investigation team but it was ignored
SUMMARY
The Dutch-led JIT’s investigation alleges that the Boeing was shot down by a Buk anti-aircraft system belonging to Kursk’s 53rd Russian anti-aircraft brigade. The Russian authorities not only provided radar data to the Netherlands, but also documentation that the Buk missile that hit the Boeing belonged to Ukraine, but the information was ignored by the investigators.
RESPONSE
The report advances recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation about the MH17 crash. The "evidence" claimed by Russia, namely radar data and the documentation on Buk's engine identified origin are only a small sample of misleading claims advanced by Moscow since 2015, some of which have contradicted one another. Also this disinformation article refers both to a Russian radar which did not detect any Buk missile and at the same time, to the claim that the Buk was of "Ukrainian origin" (evidence advanced by Russia which Novaya Gazeta found to be fabricated). On the 24th of May 2018, the JIT announced its conclusion that the BUK TELAR used to shoot down MH17 came from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, a unit of the Russian armed forces from Kursk in the Russian Federation. On the basis of the investigation conducted by the JIT, the Dutch Public Persecution service will prosecute Igor Vsevolodovich Girkin, Sergey Nikolayevich Dubinskiy, Oleg Yuldashevich Pulatov, and Leonid Volodymyrovych Kharchenko for causing the crash of the MH17 and murdering the 289 persons on board. The public hearing is scheduled for March 9th 2020 in the Netherlands. See debunking by Bellingcat and similar cases here, here, and here.