New report says it proves Russian forces downed flight MH17

The report, titled MH17: Searching for the Truth,
marries fresh testimony from military experts, separatist fighters and
residents of east Ukraine, with photo, video, social media and satellite
evidence to produce a compelling account of the events that led to the tragic
deaths of all the Malaysian Airlines flight’s 298 passengers and crew on July
17 2014.

The group believe the Buk entered Ukraine to protect
Russian armor that had proven vulnerable to aerial attack earlier in the
conflict, which erupted in April when Kremlin-backed militants seized several
government buildings in the Donbas.

Military experts told CORRECT!V only highly trained
specialists acting as a close-knit unit could have operated the Buk, and they
would have had just seconds from switching on their radar to firing the rocket
or risk being targeted themselves.

CORRECT!V went to the town of Snizhne in east Ukraine,
held by Kremlin-backed separatists. Reporters from the group say they spoke to
several witnesses in the town who described sights and sounds consistent with
the launch of a Buk missile on July 17, 2014. One witness even said he had
seen the launcher and then the rocket firing shortly afterwards:

“They shot it down. The missile flew from here. We saw
it, as it flew. I was in the yard and heard an explosion, a bang. It was a
really loud bang. The tiles on my roof shook. Then there was a long sound. And
then a very loud explosion: bang, bang. And just as I ran out into the road,
the plane began to fall. Down the road, several kilometers from here. And you could see it burn.”

CORRECT!V also interviewed a former SBU officer turned
separatist commander, Aleksandr Khodakovskiy, who originally told Reuters his
fighters were in possession of a Buk, then retracted his statement.

Khodakovskiy says a Buk from Russia was sent back after the MH17 disaster, but his forces are still supported by one Buk unit. He suggests neither are operated by his militia: “I know for sure that the
popular militia did not shoot down the Boeing. We don’t have and didn’t have
specialists who can operate such high precision weapons systems.”

Searching
for the Truth also debunks rival claims by the Russian
authorities that a Ukrainian jet destroyed MH17. The report argues the type of
damage visible to the wreckage could only have been inflicted by a surface to
air missile and that a jet firing on the front of the aircraft would, in any case, have to be
travelling from Russian airspace, which MH17 was just 40 kilometers away from
entering.

Aside from the new testimony, much of the report’s
findings are drawn from information already in the public domain, including
evidence from renowned open source investigators Bellingcat.

Bellingcat investigators have spent months gathering,
verifying and geolocating social media posts, photo and video evidence related
to Russian troop movements in Ukraine.

They geolocated photos of a Buk missile launcher on
its journey from Snizhne to Russia immediately after the MH17 was downed, and
were able to identify the launcher as belonging to Russia’s 53rd Air Defense
Brigade, based in Kursk. Investigators did so by matching a partially obscured
identification number and the unique scratches and dents shown in the Snizhne
photos with photos taken in June of a convoy of Russian armour as it drives
towards the Ukrainian border from Kursk.

“The new investigation confirms Bellingcat’s
earlier work on the movements of the Buk on July 17, and that it originated
from the 53rd brigade in Russia. At this point it’s undeniable the Russian
military provided the Buk, and there’s more and more information that links it
to the downing of MH17,” says Eliot Higgins, founder of Bellingcat.

 “It seems that the one key piece of information is
autopsy data from the Dutch criminal investigation. They’ve confirmed pieces of
metal were found in the bodies, and if they come from a Buk warhead then I
don’t think there will be any question about who was responsible for shooting
down MH17.”

You can read the full
report here: https://mh17.correctiv.org/english/