DISINFO: Leaked documents reveal: MH17 crashed in an area where there wasn't a single Buk anti-aircraft missile system
SUMMARY
New leaked documents pertaining to the JIT investigation point out that the crash of a Malaysian flight MH17 occurred in an area where there was not a single Buk anti-aircraft missile system.
RESPONSE
This case adds a new spin to the Kremlin's disinformation campaign to discredit the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) inquiry into the downing of the flight MH17. The allegedly leaked documents do not contradict the findings of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT). According to the Russian investigative journalism site the Insider, the documents list the coordinates of the points where the Ukrainian and Russian Buk-M1 systems known to intelligence were located and conclude that none of them could have brought down the Malaysian airliner. However it is not an exhaustive list of BUK missiles that could have been located in the area of the disaster. See further reporting by the Insider. The Joint Investigation Team (JIT), comprised of the the Dutch Public Prosecution Service officials and the Dutch police, along with police and criminal justice authorities from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia and Ukraine, has concluded that flight MH17 was shot down on 17 July 2014 by a missile of the 9M38 series, launched by a BUK-TELAR, from farmland in the vicinity of Pervomaiskiy (or: Pervomaiskyi). At that time, the area was controlled by pro-Russian fighters. The BUK-TELAR was brought in from the territory of the Russian Federation and subsequently, after having shot down flight MH17, was taken back to the Russian Federation. The Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT), has concluded that the BUK-TELAR used to down MH17, originates from the 53rd Anti Aircraft Missile brigade, a unit of the Russian army from Kursk in the Russian Federation. On the basis of the investigation conducted by the JIT the Dutch Public Persecution service will persecute Igor Vsevolodovich Girkin, Sergey Nikolayevich Dubinskiy, Oleg Yuldashevich Pulatov, and Leonid Volodymyrovych Kharchenko for causing the crash of the MH17 and murdering the 298 persons on board. The first session of the court proceedings is scheduled for March 9 2020 in the Netherlands. The European Union and NATO have called on the Russian Federation to accept its responsibility and to fully cooperate with all efforts to establish accountability. On the basis of the JIT’s conclusions, the Netherlands and Australia are convinced that Russia is responsible for the deployment of the Buk installation that was used to down MH17. The two governments are formally holding Russia accountable. The US has supported the decisions by the Netherlands and Australia.