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Brendan Hoffman/Getty
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Read it at The Guardian:
Pro-Russian separatists have mobbed the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine and are removing and destroying evidence that would be critical to any investigation. One rebel commander said his troops salvaged the Boeing 777’s black boxes (while another said they didn’t have them). Rebels can be seen picking through the rubble in photos. A rebel unit blocked a team from the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) from entering the site,...Worst of all, eyewitnesses said rebels stole 36 bodies from the crash site and were taking them to Donetsk.
[One rebel even fired into the air as the monitors were leaving, according to a spokesman for the organization, Michael Bociurkiw, who was there. Mr. Bociurkiw said bodies in the field were beginning to bloat. A separatist leader said that the governments of the Netherlands and Malaysia had asked the rebels informally not to disturb the crime scene, but that there were not enough refrigerators to keep the bodies there. N.Y. Times ]
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| Alexander Hug, second from left, a monitor with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, at the site of the crash in eastern Ukraine on Friday. Credit Dominique Faget/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
[U.S. Intelligence sources said they could] not pinpoint the origin of the missile launch or identify who launched it. “Those are the million-dollar questions,” said a senior Pentagon official.... The Ukrainian government released audio in which separatist rebels seemed to be discussing an SA-11 missile system that was moved into eastern Ukraine from Russia just before the Malaysian plane was destroyed.
American officials said that while they had not authenticated the tape, they had no reason to doubt it, and noted that the accents of the speakers and the scenario described seemed to fit existing information.
The Ukrainian interior ministry added to fears of a cover-up when it released video purportedly taken by police showing a truck carrying a Buk missile launcher with one of its four missiles apparently missing, rolling towards the Russian border at dawn . The video could not be independently verified.
Other material on rebel social media sites was being deleted, including pictures showing the alleged capture of Buk missile vehicles by rebels from a Ukrainian air base last month.
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| Bodies remained Friday at the site in eastern Ukraine. Armed rebels have prevented monitors from gaining full access to the area. Credit Maxim Zmeyev/Reuters |
A Nato intelligence specialist quoted by the military analysts Janes said the recordings "show that the Russian 'helpers' realise that they now have an international incident on their hands – and they probably also gave the order for separatists to erase all evidence – including those internet postings. It will be interesting to see if we ever find this Buk battery again or if someone now tries to dump it into a river."
In Washington, President Obama called for a full, impartial investigation and said the tragedy should cause people to "snap their heads together" and stop playing games in Ukraine. Putting pressure on Moscow over Ukraine, Obama said: "The violence that's taking place there is facilitated in large part because of Russian support" ... he tried to channel international indignation toward Russia for what he called an “outrage of unspeakable proportions.” Mr. Obama said the episode should be “a wake-up call for Europe”
He singled out President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, accusing him of waging a proxy war that led to the tragedy. “He has the most control over that situation,” Mr. Obama said, “and so far, at least, he has not exercised it.”
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| President Barack Obama listens to a question about the downing of a Malaysian airliner in eastern Ukraine, on Friday 18 July 2014. Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP |
... The US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, blamed a surface-to-air missile fired by rebels in eastern Ukraine and hinted that they might have had Russian technical help....
Defence analysts with Russian expertise shared Power's scepticism that Russia-backed rebel groups would have had the expertise to fire the missile and suggested it was more likely to have been Russian ground troops who specialise in air defence, seconded to help the rebels. At a briefing on Friday, Rear Adm. John Kirby, the top Pentagon spokesman, said it would have been difficult for separatists to fire the SA-11 without Russian help. “It strains credulity to think that it could be used by separatists without at least some measure of Russian support and technical assistance,” he said.
Admiral Kirby raised the possibility that the Russian military had transported the system into Ukraine and even fired it.
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| A man examined debris on Friday from the Malaysia Airlines crash a day earlier, in a field in Grabovo, Ukraine. Credit Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images |
Bob Latiff, a former US weapons developer for the air force and the CIA and now a professor at Notre Dame University, said he leaned towards a belief that it was a case of mistaken identity on the part of those who pressed the button.
"A radar return from an airplane like this would look very similar to that from a cargo plane, as was initially claimed by the separatists. If radar was all they were using, that is a shame," he said. "All airliners emit identification signals which identify the aircraft and provide other information like altitude and speed. They also operate on known communications frequencies. It doesn't sound like the separatists were using any of this.
"My guess is the system's radar saw a return from a big 'cargo' plane flying at 30,000 ft or so and either automatically fired, or some aggressive, itchy operator fired, not wanting to miss an opportunity." Latiff said that if they had only one radar, as Ukrainian officials suggest, it would have been pointed at the target..."there would normally [be]communications equipment [separate from the radar] to pick up signals showing the plane was non-military."
Igor Sutyagin, a Russian military specialist at the London-based Royal United Services Institute, said...getting evidence would be very difficult. He said: "A decision has been made on the Russian side to hide their tracks. It will be hard to find the battery.".
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The Russian Defense Ministry said at least five Ukrainian air defense systems were within range to bring down the plane. It said the flight path and crash site were within two areas where Ukraine was operating a long-range S-200 air defense system, and where three squadrons were deployed with SA-11 missile batteries.
Ukraine denied that any of its forces had been involved, and American officials said they believed that denial. “The Boeing was outside the zone of possible destruction by the antiaircraft forces of Ukraine,” Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told reporters.
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