Disinfo: US and UK falsely blamed Russia for downing MH17

Summary

American and British authorities have not always told the truth in the past, have not always correctly described what happened. Remember all their claims that the Russians shot down the Malaysia Airlines plane over Ukraine.

Disproof

A recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative that the downing of Flight MH17 has nothing to do with Russia and that there was a plot by the US, UK or the West to blame Russia. See more about "always blame the West" method. A special team, known as the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), was established to conduct the criminal investigation of the downing of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in 2014. On the basis of the investigation conducted by the JIT, the Dutch Public Persecution service will prosecute 4 individuals for causing MH17 to crash and murdering the 289 persons on board. The trial will start in March 2020 at The Hague District Court. The JIT 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. Two governments are formally holding Russia accountable. The US has supported the decisions by the Netherlands and Australia, highlighting "complete confidence in the findings from the Joint Investigation Team". See more disinformation cases as ell as their debunk on MH 17 flight's downing; on US fabricating evidence; on the West or Western media fabricating evidence against Russia.

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RT France - YouTube (Archived)
  • Reported in: Issue 179
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 09/01/2020
  • Outlet language(s) French
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: UK, US, Ukraine, Russia
  • Keywords: MH17
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Disinfo: NATO openly participates in the Donbas conflict

It is no secret that NATO has been heavily involved in the conflict [in Donbas]. There are pictures of the presence of American soldiers. Nobody talked about it. We know there were soldiers, Polish mercenaries, it’s very annoying. After a six-month investigation, evidence has been recovered confirming that the Americans were present and supplied a whole bunch of weapons. They were not shy about it. A journalist doing his job could have found this information. Russia has been accused of being the main actor and aggressor in the conflict, but no one has questioned the role of NATO and the Americans. And we know that. Just type in Google, you will find this information but it has always been silenced.

Jan 08, 2020
Disproof

No evidence is given concerning the presence of NATO troops or Polish mercenaries among pro-Ukrainian forces. This is a recurrent conspiracy narrative advanced by Russian media. Pro-Kremlin sources repeatedly accuse foreign military of taking part in the war in Ukraine without providing any evidence, see dozens of cases in our database. Earlier, Polish Ministry for National Defence and Lithuania's Armed Forces have confirmed that their soldiers have only delivered trainings to the Armed Forces of Ukraine and do not take part in combat actions. Thus, in 2014 Robert Pszczel, Director of NATO Information Office in Moscow, was invited to the programme ‘Politics’ (Channel Rossiya 1). His opponents, notorious Russian nationalists Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Aleksandr Rutskoy, accused Pszczel of NATO fuelling the war in Donbas and stated that ‘hundreds of Poles’ were killed in Donbas, their bodies ‘secretly being taken to Warsaw’. No forensic evidence of such a large scale operation was ever given. Russia’s state-run news agency RIA has also reported the presence of Polish mercenaries in Donbas, quoting Eduard Basurin, deputy chief of headquarters of the self-proclaimed Donetsk people’s republic. Basurin expressed confidence that there were foreign mercenaries near Debaltseve but added they did not have any ‘personal possessions’ to prove it. “As soon as we find them we’ll show,” he said. So far, it did not happen. See more examples of "Polish mercenaries in Ukraine" in the digest composed by Belsat TV channel based in Warsaw. As for American soldiers in Donbas, the disinformation outlet does not publish the "proving pictures" to support such a huge claim. At that, over the five years of war that has pitted Ukrainian forces against Russia-backed separatists, the United States has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in military gear to Ukraine: night-vision goggles, flak jackets, vehicles, counter-battery radars. After years of internal debate that preceded his administration, President Donald Trump began supplying Ukraine with sophisticated anti-tank missiles known as Javelins. The US Congress' proposals to send weaponry to Ukraine further intensified in response to an incident in November 2018, when Russian Coast Guard ships seized three Ukrainian boats and 24 sailors in the Kerch Strait near the illegally annexed by Russia Crimean Peninsula. The disinformation outlet visibly does not deny the Russian aggression in Ukraine. But in the best case, it mixes up things. It tries to equalize the official military aid to a sovereign State, which followed after years of assessments, parliamentary votes and discussions after further escalation incidents, with Russian still non-officially recognized intervention in Ukraine since 2014. The Russian aggression, which provoked the war in Donbas, was led by identified Russian FSB officer. The graves of Russian mercenaries, in contrast to the Polish ones, are found. See more disinformation cases on the war in Donbas.

Disinfo: The United States raised the Islamic State terrorist organisation

Under Obama, the United States raised the Islamic State terrorist organisation to explain the invasion of Syria. It was, of course, a lengthy process. And today led to the fact that for the first time a whole country (Iran) dared to formally speak out against the United States.

Jan 08, 2020
Disproof

No evidence given to support this claim and a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative that either the US or the West is behind the creation of ISIS/Daesh. This message is part of a broader conspiracy theory alleging that the United States has established many terrorist organizations and controls global terrorism. Read similar messages here, here and here. In fact, the US is part of the global coalition against Daesh.

Disinfo: Only the US has the capacity to shoot down Ukrainian flight PS752

Kyiv is silent about another version, which is not associated with a technical malfunction. This is shooting down by an air defence system. In the current reality, only the US could do it.

Jan 08, 2020
Disproof

Conspiracy theory about the downing of the Ukrainian flight PS 752. Iran has recognised that its military forces unintentionally shot down the passenger jet. On January 11, the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Hassan Rouhani wrote on Twitter: “Armed Forces’ internal investigation has concluded that regrettably, missiles fired due to human error caused the horrific crash of the Ukrainian plane & death of 176 innocent people.” Earlier, intelligence services of Canada and the United States informed that the Ukrainian plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile minutes after departure from the Tehran airport. Find here the EU statement regarding the incident.