After analyzing a massive volume of data from open sources, a team of British investigative journalists has found “solid information” that the Buk missile system that downed Malaysian Airlines flight 17 in July came from Russia, and was sent back there after the disaster. They also traced the Buk’s military convoy back to its base in Russia.
“If it is confirmed a Buk missile was used and the launch site is established by the official investigation as being Snizhne (in Donetsk Oblast), it seems clear the launcher came from Russia, and the government bears the responsibility for killing hundreds of innocent civilians on MH17,” says Eliot Higgins, who led the team of investigative journalists.
Read the full Bellingcat team report here.
Malaysian Airlines flight 17 was shot down over Ukraine’s eastern region of Donetsk on July 17 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. All 283 passengers aboard and 15 crew members died as the aircraft fell to bits in the air.
The plane lost contact with air traffic control about 50 kilometers from the Ukrainian-Russian border in Donetsk Oblast, and crashed close to the town of Torez. Ukrainian and Western intelligence services said that all their data gathered in the wake of the crash point to the plane being shot down by a Buk surface-to-air missile fired from the territory controlled by Russia-backed insurgents, close to Snizhne.
There was also evidence that the Buk system arrived from Russia, and was moved back over the border after the plane crash. But the Russian authorities deny these allegations, and pointed the finger at the Ukrainians, saying the plane was shot down by a Ukrainian military aircraft.
A preliminary report issued by the Dutch Safety Board, which is investigating the crash, concluded last month that several civilian airlines were flying in the area on the date of the crash, but there were no military planes that would be capable of shooting down MH17. Its final report is due a year after the crash.
Access to the crash site has been limited because of the ongoing war in the region. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Nov. 6 that an international team of investigators was able to access the crash site last week, and “found remains of victims, which will be transferred to the Netherlands following the usual ceremonial protocol.”
“We will continue to take every opportunity to go to the site,” a government website quoted him as saying.In the meantime, Higgins says he had realized that massive volumes of information were out in the social media that could help the investigation, and he was one of the few people in the world who could make sense of it.
“In my experience, it seemed unlikely the official investigation would look at this information in the same way we do, so it’s my feeling this would contribute to the investigation of what happened to MH17, looking at evidence that would otherwise be overlooked,” Higgins says. He also says he is passing all his findings “to the appropriate authorities.”
Higgins’ investigation team looked into three areas related to the Buk missile launch system suspected of shooting down the plane. First of all, its movements on the day of the tragedy were reconstructed using photo and video materials available online.
Secondly, the team examined the evidence that the Buk filmed and photographed on the day of the tragedy originated in Russia and was part of a convoy heading to the Ukrainian border in late June.And thirdly, the team looked at evidence that the same convoy returned from the Ukrainian border region shortly after July 17.
“There is undeniable evidence that separatists in Ukraine were in control of a Buk missile launcher on July 17, transporting it from Donetsk to Snizhne on a transporter, where it was unloaded a few hours before the downing of MH17, and later filmed, minus one missile, driving through separatist controlled Luhansk,” the team’s report concludes.
The team of investigative journalists discovered that the same Buk missile system was a part of a convoy traveling from the 53rd air defense brigade in Kursk to near the Ukrainian border as part of a training exercise between June 22 and July 25. Parts of the same unit returned back to base after July 17.
All this information about the military convoy from Kursk was harvested from 15 videos in social networks, including Vkontakte, Youtube, Instagram and Odnoklassniki. The team identified the exact location of each video and unique markings of individual vehicles that were part of the convoy. They were then matched to earlier satellite images of the 53rd air defense brigade at its base.
The Buk missile system that was used to shoot down MH17 was also identified in various photo and video images, using two types of markers. First of all, journalists analyzed unique markings on the vehicle that appeared when Russian separatists made an attempt to obscure the original unit designation number, and tracing these markings on each video image and photographs of the missile system, including those taken by Paris Match and other Western media after the airplane crash.
Also, the team used another unique marker of each vehicle for tracing, the so-called “rubber skirt fingerprint.” The term is a reference for a unique pattern of damage of the rubber skirt that runs around the tracks of the Buk system.
The team then traced all details of the movement of this system on July 17, the day of the disaster, in the Donetsk region, analyzing the shadows and data incorporated into video files to determine the exact time and place where the images were taken.
It was discovered that most of the time the Buk system was transported on a low-loader, but a photograph and a video taken outside of Sniznhe on July 17 and posted on Twitter and Youtube, showed the vehicle moving under its own power.
Both images were taken around the same time, 1:30 p.m., and within one kilometer from each other south of Snizhne, close to where the launch site is believed to be located. The Malaysian flight was downed at 1:20 p.m. local time.
The team then traced the vehicle back outside of Ukraine using the same tools. One of the videos from Luhansk used for analyzing the vehicle’s movement post-launch, showed a missile missing from the Buk system.
The video was released by the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, and then ridiculed by Russia’s Ministry of Defense as “clearly a fabrication” produced on the territory controlled by Ukrainian troops. The British journalists traced the location of the video to 75 kilometers north of Snizhne and said the Russian ministry’s statement was “untrue.”
Kyiv Post deputy chief editor Katya Gorchinskaya can be reached at [email protected]
