A mixture of Big Oil and big politics could ultimately stymie any attempts to bring to justice those responsible for the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine last year, the author of a new book on the tragedy believes.
But Jaroslav Koshiw, a former Kyiv Post editor who lives in the United Kingdom, says the world should still recognize Russian President Vladimir Putin as the person ultimately responsible for the downing of the plane, killing all 298 passengers on board.
In his meticulously detailed and copiously annotated book, entitled “MH17: The story of the shooting down of the Malaysian airliner,” Koshiw over 10 chapters documents the circumstances of the tragedy, and draws some disturbing conclusions.
The first chapter documents the crash, while the following two detail the cover-up that the Russian-backed insurgents appear to have carried out after shooting down the airplane.
“During the first day after the crash, the Donetsk militia removed the bodies of the pilots to conduct secret autopsies and allowed unidentified workmen to destroy the cockpit, the most critical piece of evidence,” Koshiw writes.
The cover-up attempts also included taking away and possibly interfering with the aircraft’s “black box” flight recorders before the international investigators could get hold of them, Koshiw says.
“As soon as the black boxes were found, the Donetsk militia was obliged to pass them on to the Dutch crash investigators or to Malaysian Airlines. Instead, they held on to them for four days before giving them to the Malaysian and Dutch representatives.”
Over the next three chapters, Koshiw describes the anti-aircraft weapon that was probably used, and where the missile was launched. Analyzing various reports by media outlets, and photos and videos shared in social media, he concludes the anti-aircraft weapon used was a Buk missile launcher, and that the weapon came from Russia.
“In the early hours near the remote village of Sukhodilsk, Luhansk region, two Buks on tank tracks surreptitiously crossed the Ukrainian border in an area held by pro-Russian forces,” the book states.
The seventh and eighth chapters focus on the soldiers who handled this anti-aircraft weapon. In these two chapters, Koshiw transcribes conversations of the Donetsk militia commanders, such as one that took place twenty minutes after MH17 was destroyed, between the Horlivka militia commander, Igor Nikolayevich Bezler, and his boss in Russian military intelligence, Colonel Vasili Nikolayevich Geranin:
“[Bezler] Just shot down a plane. It was Sapper’s group. It went down beyond Yenakiyeve. It fell like an apple.
[Geranin] Pilots. Where are the pilots?
[Bezler] We have set off to search for the downed plane and take pictures of it. A plume of smoke is visible.
[Geranin] How many minutes ago? [Bezler] About 30 minutes ago.”The ninth chapter of the book tries to answer one of the most oft-asked questions regarding the MH17 shot down: Why did the Russian-backed insurgents shoot down a commercial airliner?
Koshiw concludes that it was probably a mistake.
“Why? Maybe, because at 1620, judging by the reaction of the C-in-C Girkin, the crew was expecting a Ukrainian military AN-26 transport plane. But instead of an AN-26, MH17 appeared, and the Buk’s crew shot it down,” Koshiw writes.
Koshiw uses the 10th and last chapter to air his own opinions, and squarely blames Putin for the killing of 298 innocent people.
“I want to go after Putin because he made the decision to send the Russian troops that shot down an international passenger airplane,” Koshiw says of this last chapter in his book. “He should be treated as a suspect, and be brought to trial for war crimes.”
Of the 298 passengers of the MH17, 193 were Dutch. But Koshiw says that the Dutch authorities, who are leading the international investigation into the MH17 tragedy at the Ukrainian government’s behest, won’t insist on prosecuting Putin for war crimes because of the economic interests they share with Russia.
“For the Dutch, economic relations with Russia are a number one priority,” he said. “They’re not going to go after Putin – they just want to go after the crew of the Buk.”
“The Dutch have a company that everybody knows, called Royal Dutch Shell, and Russia has some projects that Shell could make lots of money from,” Koshiw says.
Royal Dutch Shell is teaming up with Russian Gazprom on several projects despite Western sanction on Russia, and at the beginning of 2015 they signed a memorandum to build two new Nord Stream gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea.
“Shell is the Netherlands’ number one company, so they will be very careful in attacking Putin,” Koshiw explained. “They have an important relationship with Gazprom, and that’s key.”
However, Koshiw says there will be no justice for the victims of the tragedy unless Putin acknowledges his responsibility.
“What he should have done is admitted to the fact that it was his Buk, his crew – and apologize for it,” Koshiw says.
“He can’t do it, because he says Russia is not involved in what he calls an ‘internal civil war,’ and as long as he says this, even though no one believes it anymore, he can’t solve this problem.”
But simply refusing to acknowledge his guilt will never make Putin innocent, Koshiw says.
“This problem will always be haunting him, for the rest of his life, for the rest of his time,” Koshiw says. “Putin organized and was responsible for the killing of 298 passengers who were totally innocent and had nothing to do with the fighting.”
The perhaps forlorn hope that Putin might one day face justice is set out in the last paragraph of Koshiw’s book. It also contains a warning about letting the Russian leader off the hook:
“In an ideal world, Putin should be put on trial for war crimes in Ukraine at the International Criminal Court at The Hague. This would bring some justice to the relatives of the 298 innocent people killed on board flight MH17. Failure to punish Putin licenses him to commit more crimes.”
