Disinfo: Ukrainian ships aggressively violated the Russian borders in 2018

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the downing of flight MH17 which attempts to question the legitimacy of the Joint Investigative Team, the JIT. Similar cases can be found here. Volodymyr Tsemakh was released to Russia in a prisoner exchange performed 7 September. Mr. Tsemakh, a Ukrainian citizen, was detained on separatist-held territory by Ukrainian authorities in June 2019 on suspicions of being an accomplice in the shooting-down of the MH17. A thorough investigation into Mr. Tsemakh's connection to the case was published by Bellingcat in July. Volodymyr Tsemakh is not among the four suspects, wanted by Dutch authorities for causing the MH17 crash and murdering all 298 persons on board, but is considered a ‘person of interest’. Dutch authorities interrogated Mr. Tsemakh before the prison exchange. No details from this element of the investigation have yet been disclosed. 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.

This narrative claims the war in Ukraine is a civil war and Russia has nothing to do with it, consistent with common pro-Kremlin disinformation about the war in Ukraine. It disregards a multitude of factual evidence of Russian military presence in Donbas. Consult the evidence database and publications with further evidence here and here. There is extensive evidence of active Russian soldiers taking part in fighting in Donbas. Most of the Russians captured have already been exchanged. Amid heavy battles in 2014 and 2015, Ukrainian army captured dozens of active Russian servicemen in Donbas. For instance, on 24 August 2014, amid the Battle of Ilovaisk the 51st brigade captured 10 Russian paratroopers from the 331st parachute infantry regiment of the 98th Guards Airborne regiment based in Russian city Kostroma. Later, Russia claimed that the soldiers simply got lost on Ukrainian territory. On 31 August Ukraine and Russia exchanged captured troops. On 15 May 2015 Ukrainian army captured two Russian GRU (Russian military intelligence) soldiers – Capt. Yevgeniy Yerofeev and Sgt. Aleksandr Aleksandrov. A year later they were exchanged for First Lieutenant Nadiya Savchenko who had been captured near Luhansk in June 2014 and then transported to Russia. More examples of Russian soldiers captured in Ukraine can be found here.