On July 15, 2014, a chaplain for the Ukrainian Armed Forces named O. (short for “otets,” or “father”) Gredil Mykhailo uploaded a handful of photographs showing a Ukrainian Buk missile launcher in a field that appeared to function as a Ukrainian military camp. The photographs would not be noteworthy if it were not for two things: the fact that Mykhailo uploaded the photographs two days before the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 (July 17, 2014), and that he included geotags indicating that the photographs were taken near Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, according to Bellingcat, a citizen investigative group.
Murder In The Sky: Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17
Bellingcat: Photographs of Ukrainian Buks geolocated, nearly three years later
Members of a joint investigation team present the preliminary results of the criminal investigation into the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, in Nieuwegein, on Sept. 28, 2016.