Malaysian Airlines flight MH17: Who is self-styled separatist leader Igor Strelkov?
Quote:
Self-styled pro-Russian separatist kingpin Igor Strelkov captured the attention of the world today when he
appeared to claim responsibility for the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17.
The comments by the top military commander of the self-proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republic"
suggested the separatists shot down the Malaysia Airlines plane by mistake, believing it was a large Ukrainian army transport plane.
I haven't seen the exact post, or its translation. Out of curiosity, have you? ... and do you know what it said? Also, do you know when it was posted in relation to the timing of the MH17 crash?
I understand that a Ukrainan Sukhoi Su-25 fighter plane was downed over separatist held territory on the same day. From what I gather (via secondary and tertiary sources), could the post (allegedly by Strelkov) that says "We warned them to stay away from our skies (or words to that effect)" be referring to downing of the fighter plane instead of the MH17?
I don't know
Secondly, for a man allegedly in charge of waging the war against Ukraine, how likely is it that he himself is posting these updates? Are they even authorised by him, or is the page just run by fans? If so, would it not be possible that they saw or heard that a large plane went down somewhere on separatist held territory and assumed they downed another Ukranian plane and boasted about it?
Thirdly, considering the weight placed upon this post by the media and its public relations value to the other side, could the account have been hacked?
My point is there are a lot of questions, and the evidence is at best circumstantial. You wouldn't be able to convict a person of a petty crime based on the level of evidence available, yet our leadership (our ELECTED representatives) are shooting their mouths of proclaiming with certainty they know what happened and who's responsible.
On Thursday a Twitter account for the "Donetsk People's Republic" issued several posts claiming to have seized a missile system from the Ukrainian army.
"@dnrpress:
self-propelled Buk surface-to-air missiles systems have been seized by the DNR from (Ukrainian) surface-to-air missile regiment A1402," the Twitter post said.
They may well have captured one, but it is a complex piece of machinery, not a point and shoot system. At least 3 vehicles (and three highly skilled operators) are required to drive it to engage a target. A radar to acquire the target's position, a command vehicle to compute trajectory and assign target to launch vehicle(s) and a launch vehicle to fire the missile.
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...014/07/535.jpg
It's not a heat seeking, shoulder launched point and shoot system that's been used by the separatists in recent weeeks to bring down a handfuly of other, significantly lower flying Ukranian aircraft.
So not as likely as some would have us believe that the rebels could have brought down the plane. It is possible but is it likely?
It is possible that some of the Ukranian forces trained on the system have defected to the separatist cause, but we haven't heard any reports of that happening. It is possible that Russian soldiers operating in Ukraine could have manned the system pretending to be separatists. That's plausible and even likely, but in either of these scenarios, the operators would have known they were targeting a civilian airplane. Why would they want to bring down a civilian airplane - what do they have to gain?
So was it an accident, or was it shot down on purpose? And if by some unimaginable chance it was shot down on purpose, by whom, and to what end? None of these questions, which a reasonable thinking person with some background knowledge may want to ask, are being asked or answered.
Military analysts say the Buk medium-range surface-to-air missile is the weapon most likely to have been used to shoot down MH17.
I know that's the line that being parroted by the various news media, but what evidence is there to support that conclusion?
Jane's Defence made the statement that it was most likely either a Buk or an S-300. That was based on SAM systems in the area, and those capable of taking down a plane at that height. Both Buk and S-300 SAM systems are unfortunately more than capable. Moreover, they both travel at approximately the same speed, so would be virtually indistinguishable from one another on radar? As far as I'm aware, no fragments of the missile have been recovered from the wreckage. So why is coverage limited to the Buk system?
Well, there was a tweet that separatists took control of such a system, so that fits in much better with the narrative, making it plausible for separatists to be responsible. Second, a Buk has a shorter targeting range (40 km Vs 300km), making it more likely that is was fired from rebel held territory. This further strenthens the narrative. Mind you the narrative may be true, its just that its way too early to be able to reach that conclusion.
There's still no conclusive evedence of what was used to shoot the plane down, while more and more questions that have been completely ignored in preference to the more widely used narrative that it was the rebels, they said so themselves.
End of quote
So, going by the news it appears that we know the bastard but he have not done it alone. I hope that do not kill him to cover up the others.
Also it appears that Russia did not provided the missile to the separatists, the missile was in custody by the Ukrainian army and seized by the separatist.
What ever it is the result I hope that justice will be done.
