Editor’s Note: This feature separates Ukraine’s friends from its enemies. The Order of Yaroslav the Wise has been given since 1995 for distinguished service to the nation. It is named after the Kyivan Rus leader from 1019-1054, when the medieval empire reached its zenith. The Order of Lenin was the highest decoration bestowed by the Soviet Union, whose demise Russian President Vladimir Putin mourns. It is named after Vladimir Lenin, whose corpse still rots on the Kremlin’s Red Square, 100 years after the October Revolution he led.
Ukraine’s Friend of the Week: Eliot Higgins
The hours after the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 on July 17, 2014, were filled with bewildered questions. How was such a large aircraft knocked out of the sky? Who would order the shooting down of a civilian airliner with 298 innocent people on board? Would those who were responsible for the shooting down ever be identified? And would the murderers ever face justice?
Four years later on, we know the answers to all but the last of those questions, and that is largely due to the work of Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins and his team of online, open-source researchers.
By combing through the online clues left by the culprits, Higgins and his team were quickly able to establish many of the key facts of the case. By examining photographs of the shrapnel holes in the wreckage of MH17 that rained down onto Russian-occupied parts of Donetsk Oblast in eastern Ukraine, for instance, it was quickly established that a powerful BUK missile had exploded close to the cockpit – parts of the weapon used have since been discovered, confirming the identification.
Earlier on that fateful day, a team of Associated Press journalists reported that they had seen a BUK missile launcher in Torez, in the Russian-occupied part of Donetsk Oblast, and in subsequent days Bellingcat researchers and journalists were able to establish the likely site of the launch of the BUK missile, using a photograph that showed the smoke trail left by the missile.
By Nov. 4, 2014, the Bellingcat team issued a report that identified the Russian unit from which the BUK missile launcher had originated: It belonged to Russia’s 53rd Anti-Missile Brigade, based in Kursk, and had traveled secretly to Ukraine in a military convoy, shot down MH17, and then evacuated from the country, minus one missile, the next morning. Bellingcat, in meticulous detail, using photos and video, showed how they had reconstructed the route the military convoy had taken from Kursk to the Ukrainian border, and then showed the probable route the launcher had taken while in Ukraine.
The team also debunked several of the wild counter-explanations put out by the Kremlin to try to confuse the issue. All this was done using the trail of social media posts left by members of Russia’s armed forces and members of the public, and the investigation was replicable and the conclusions testable by anyone. A truly masterful work of investigation, its findings have since been confirmed by the Dutch-led official joint investigation into the shooting down of MH17.
Bellingcat has since identified some of those who must have been in command of the BUK launcher while it was in Ukraine, who are thus directly responsible for the mass-murder of 298 people on July 17, 2014. The team has withheld the names of most of these people, as they are suspects in the Dutch-led criminal investigation.
But we now know for certain the name of the Russian regular army unit responsible for shooting down MH17, and many of the circumstances of the crime. The opinion of those who still doubt the findings of the official investigation into this atrocity can no longer be taken seriously: they are simply mistaken, or worse, are trying to cover up for the Kremlin’s crimes in Ukraine.
Unfortunately, we do not know if any of the suspects in this crime will ever face justice: it is unlikely, as the Russian constitution forbids the extradition of Russian citizens for trial abroad. And Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, who is ultimately responsible for this crime (unless he can prove he was not in control of Russia’s military from late June to late July 2014) is unlikely ever to be apprehended and brought to trial.
But those most directly affected by the MH17 tragedy, the relatives of the victims, at least now know the circumstances of their loved-ones’ deaths, and who is responsible. And they, Ukraine and the world have this information because of the work of Bellingcat and its leader, Higgins, who is thus Ukraine’s Friend of the Week and a winner of the Order of Yaroslav the Wise.
Ukraine’s Foe of the Week: Donald J. Trump
The award-winning New York magazine, a respected U.S. publication, on July 8 published an astonishing article. In it, author Jonanthan Chait meticulously sets out, over a space of nearly 9,000 words, the evidence that the 45th president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, has been a Russian agent since 1987.
That was the year when Trump visited Moscow for the first time. It was also the year he started to show an interest in politics. And ever since, Trump has regularly disparaged NATO, asking why the United States should pay so much of the alliance’s budget, as if the organization was some kind of protection racket rather than a defensive alliance from which the U.S. benefits.
Chait enumerates this, and a host of other odd connections that have appeared between Trump and Russia over the years – from the shady connections of known Trump associates to the Kremlin, to the Trump organization’s reliance on Russian (which effectively means Kremlin) capital, and the odd communications uncovered between Trump organization servers and a Russian bank.
The evidence Chait sets out is too lengthy and detailed to give here, and includes Trumps failures to enforce sanctions against Russia and his elimination of the White House’s top cybersecurity position, even as signs of systematic Russian hacking of vital Western computer system increase.
Near the end of his piece, Chait recounts an anecdote that summarizes his incredible hypothesis:
“Shortly before Trump’s inauguration, according to Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman, Israeli intelligence officials gathered at CIA headquarters, where they were told something astonishing: Russia, the agency believed, had ‘leverages of pressure’ over the incoming president. Therefore, the agency advised the Israelis to consider the possibility that Trump might pass their secrets on to Russia. The Israelis dismissed the warning as outlandish. Who could believe that the world’s most powerful country was about to hand its presidency to a Russian dupe? That the U.S. government had, essentially, fallen?
A few months later, Trump invited Russian diplomats into the Oval Office. He boasted to them that he had fired ‘nut job’ James Comey. ‘I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.’ At the same meeting, Trump passed on to the Russians a highly sensitive intelligence secret Israel had captured from a valuable source inside ISIS. It was the precise danger Israel had been cautioned about.”
Two years later on from that incident, Trump insisted, against his advisors’ wishes, on having a private meeting with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin at a summit meeting in Helsinki, Finland, on July 16. It is unclear why Putin deserved to be granted such a meeting, given that he has done nothing to correct the Kremlin’s menacing, lawless behavior on the international stage.
The outcome of Trump’s summit meeting with Putin as of the time of writing of this article are unknown. Even after the two met, it is not known in detail exactly what they discussed, as there were no official recordings and no other officials present (only two translators were present) at their private meeting. That in itself is suspicious.
However, we know from the Russian dictator’s actions over the last few years what Putin’s immediate goals are: To weaken the West by splitting NATO and the European Union. To remove the sanctions against Russia. To have the West accept Russia’s seizure of Ukraine’s Crimea.
In his meeting with Putin, Trump reaffirmed his support of these goals, repeating his recent efforts to undermine NATO and the EU, calling for the relaxation of sanctions on Russia, or weakening the clear position of the U.S. on the non-recognition of the Kremlin’s seizure of Ukraine’s Crimea, as he sided with Putin rather than with U.S. spies over the issue of election interference.
Eyebrows should be waggling furiously and many have been, including those at Fox News, known to be a friendlier ground for Trump. Host Bret Baier called the U.S. president’s comments during the press conference “surreal,” Fox Business host Neil Cavuto called them ‘disgusting,’ and Trish Regan, also a Fox Business host, said that Trump “should have defended his own intelligence community.”
Any movement of the U.S. position on the issues mentioned above support the astonishing hypothesis set out in Chait’s New York magazine article – that Trump is a Kremlin agent. It would not prove the hypothesis, but would add to the growing body of evidence in its support. If Trump were not a Kremlin agent, why would he behave just like one?
Meanwhile, Trump is Ukraine’s Foe of the Week and a winner of the Order of Lenin for all that he already did before his meeting with Putin to undermine the international position on Russia’s occupation of Crimea, his regular praise of Ukraine’s chief foe, Putin, and the damage his foolish comments have already done to NATO, Ukraine’s main military partner.
