Just had a conversation with a coworker who stated that there’s no actual evidences that Russia was responsible for the downing of flight MH17 (neither directly or by having provided the weapon used to the Ukrainian rebels) and even that Russia provided convincing evidences to the contrary. That was amongst a chat about how media, even the most respectable, just all follow (swallow?) the same lines provided by various propaganda/PR offices, including governmental ones.
In most cases like that I don’t pay much attention, but this coworker is quite educated, doesn’t typically buy into conspiration theories, and isn’t particularly supportive of Putin. So, I thought about it and besides the general statements about Russian guilt read in the media and even here, I don’t really remember what are the actual evidences against Russia, if any.
So, I’m turning to well informed dopers. Could have been posted in GQ, but Putin policies seems to be typically an heavily loaded topic, so I expect arguments and picked GD instead.
Well, the missile system presumed to be used was possessed by both sides, so the physical evidence of the attack does not give you a definitive answer.
However, while the rebels had been given SAM units, they don’t appear to have been given any aircraft. Since the Ukraine wasn’t engaged with an enemy possessing aircraft, they wouldn’t have any reason to fire theirs at any aircraft, much less an aircraft of that type, coming from that direction.
So, the rebels had a reason to shoot at the aircraft, and the weapons necessary to do it. The Ukraine had weapons, but no non-tinfoil reason to shoot at the airliner.
The Dutch Safety Board concluded that the airplane was downed by a 9N314M warhead carried by a 9M38 series of missile launched from a Buk surface to air system.
They also concluded that the missile flight path originated in an area of 320 km[sup]2[/sup] in the east of Ukraine.
Now obviously the report is from a government office so given your friend’s distrust I doubt it’ll matter. Though why, given the overwhelming centralized authority of the Russian government compared to the Dutch, he would give their story more credibility I don’t know.
Seems like it’s been answered already, but curious:
What is the convincing evidence that Russia has provided, in your or your co-workers minds, that shows Russia didn’t do it or have any hand in it? I suppose if you want to make the case that the ‘Ukrainian rebels’ are completely dissociated from Russia that it would be completely on them and no fault of the Russians that some schlubs used a Russian ground to air attack system to take down a jet, but that doesn’t seem to be what you meant so thought I’d ask.
There are several 9/11 Truther types who are fairly well educated and they make the claim all the time that they don’t ‘typically buy into conspiration(sp) theories’ either. Just sayin’.
Hopefully his/her convincing counter-evidence is not the infamous photoshopped image which was briefly shown on russian media before being thoroughly debunked.
Oh…I thought you were saying it was convincing evidence to you. You should ask him. Most of the evidence in this is circumstantial. But when you weigh it all together it’s a pretty compelling picture unless one is into CTs or false flag operations played by the Ukraine (or the EU/US or martians or something). It all points back to Russia being culpable at some level. I doubt they ordered the jet shot down at the highest levels (i.e. I don’t expect that Putin while smoking a stogie with his feet propped up on a convenient peasant and drinking a vodka martini, shaken, not stirred reached over to the big red phone and said ‘take it down’ before taking off his shirt and shooting a bear), but at a minimum they gave technical advice and advisers as well as the weapons themselves to the ‘rebels’ who did the deed.
I personally don’t think that the rebels themselves thought they were shooting down an airliner. They claimed to have brought down a military transport shortly after MH17 went down, then deleted that post when it was obvious that there weren’t any transports shot down that day.
The intercepted communications are pretty damning. There were also a couple of photos doing the rounds on social media (so not of substantiated provenance): one of a Buk missile launcher in the rebel-controlled town near where the shootdown took place and another of a Buk with one missile missing being driven away from there.
Just sayin’.