In the aftermath of the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, in which all 298 people on board were killed on July 17, 2014, Ukraine and Western nations pointed the finger at Russian-separatist forces in eastern Donbas. Russia blamed the Ukrainian military. With little other information to go on, social media provided the bulk of the clues for what really happened. Bellingcat, a U.K.-based citizen journalism project, has released a series of social media postings made prior to, during and immediately after the tragedy. Most of the statements support the theory that the civilian airliner was brought down by Kremlin-backed separatists.
Social media posts from residents of Donetsk and Shakhtarsk prior to the crash suggest a missile launcher was transported out of the city by Moscow-backed separatists that morning.
Twitter user @666_mancer: 10:13am
“Donetsk 25-30 minutes ago around the Georgia area something that looks like a Smerch was seen. It was sitting there. But maybe they are going to transport it…”
Twitter user @Buzzing_Rook: 12:32pm
“In the morning people were writing that it [a Buk] was on Shakhtostroiteley Boulevard by Ilych Avenue headed in the direction of Makeevka.”
Twitter user @spice4Russia: 12:51 pm
“Shakhtersk kamaz of terrorists, 3 tanks. Before them possibly a Buk passed by, covered up”
Residents of Torez and Snizhne reported seeing the rocket launcher pass them an hour before the plane was shot out of the sky.
Twitter user @WowihaY: 12:07pm
“An air defense installation just passed us in the direction of the city center. 4 rockets, they say that it’s a Buk #stopterror #torez in the direction of #snizhne”
Twitter user @MOR2537: 12:10pm
“They hauled a rocket complex on a low-loader escorted by two vehicles through Torez towards Snizhne at 12:10pm”
The sound of the explosion was announced by residents on Twitter. The plane crashed at 4:20pm local time.
Twitter user @other331: 4:25 pm
“Something just made a loud as hell sound from the direction of Shakhtarsk”
Twitter user @NikolasFather: 4:28 pm
“No, it was between Shakhtarsk and Torez, closer to Torez and further north. Sounded like a Grad volley (if it is that, then where is it firing to?)”
Twitter user @other331: 4:35 pm
“At first it was a single explosion that wasn’t too strong, and then after a minute a second stronger one thundered.”
Twitter user @HuSnizhne: 4:25 pm
“Snizhne: a plane flew by and then a bang. Either it bombed something or it crashed.”
Other residents, some of whom openly supported the separatists, said they had seen a rocket launched into the sky.
Sergei Petrov, a Snizhne resident without any political affiliations, wrote on his Vkontakte account that he’d witnessed an explosion.
5:03pm: “Vlad, I also didn’t immediately realize. I saw that something was flying. I was out in the country in a tree and picking peaches. And then an explosion. There was an extremely strong sound…I would have captured it on my phone (((( but people did capture the end”
Danil Radyukov, a local man who supports separatists, posted on Vkontakte at 7:08:
“I saw how this rocket flew!!! I even saw where it came from and where it went!!! It was terrible as hell to see it!!!!”
Irina Shcherbakova, a local Snizhne woman who supports the separatists, saw a rocket launch before the downing of MH17:
7:42: “I saw how a rocket flew from the direction of Saurovka…and then a minute-long lull and a loud explosion…a trail remained in the sky from the rocket…I didn’t see the explosion myself it was very loud…I don’t know who to believe but we didn’t hear the sound of an SU[-25]…..it was quiet just like with a normal passenger plane and then that’s all…
A Vkontakte group run by fans of then-separatist commander Russian citizen Igor Strelkov offered the most damning evidence of separatist involvement, though it was deleted once it became known that it was not a military plane but a civilian airliner that was downed.
Posted at 5:50 Moscow time, the message read:
“In the area of Torez an AN-26 plane was just shot down, it is somewhere near the mine ‘Progress’.”
We warned them – do not fly in “our skies.”
And here is video proof of yet another “falling bird.”
And there is also information about a second shot down plane, likely a SU[-25]”
In its investigation, Bellingcat notes that while these social media posts cannot be considered a smoking gun of separatist involvement, the eyewitness accounts of residents do match the narrative widely accepted by the international community that Moscow-backed separatists accidentally shot down the plane.
“A Buk anti-aircraft system was located in Donetsk in the late morning, headed east through Shakhtarsk, moved through Torez at around 12:10 (p.m.), and left through Snizhne later that afternoon. A rocket was fired—both seen and heard from locals who were supporters of separatist forces—from south of Snizhne immediately before the downing of MH17,” the Bellingcat report concluded.
This report includes only some of the social media postings found by Bellingcat. A full round-up of the social media posts can be found at www.kyivpost.com.
Staff writer Allison Quinn can be reached at [email protected].
