21/07/2014
With hardly any more evidence that it had on Saturday â which was
none at all - it seems the United States, represented by John Kerry, is prepared to accuse Russia of sending "powerful rocket launchers" to the separatists who shot down MH17.
This is according to
The Times which carried the report on its front page, claiming "Damming US intelligence puts Russia in the dock". It is referring to an "
American intelligence report" which also alleges that President Putin allowed separatist fighters to receive training inside Russia - including on the air-defence systems apparently used to bring down MH17.
The US report then goes on to claim that three BUK-M1 surface-to-air missile units of the type believed used for the attack were hurriedly taken back into Russia at night, within hours of the incident on Thursday.
The interesting part of that claim is that it relies largely on "intelligence" from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). However, the evidence suggesting that the origin of the missile launcher(s) was the Ukrainian Army, and that one launcher at least had been in use on 14 July, has been largely glossed over.
In fact, we have the
New York Times saying that American officials have ruled out the possibility that the separatists used a captured system from the Ukrainian government's arsenal. The SA-11 unit that the separatists said they captured in June, American officials say, "is not operational and is in a different region of Ukraine".
Thus, the SBU is
still asserting that it has "compelling evidence that a Boeing 777 aircraft was shot down with the use of BUK anti-missile system which together with a crew had been transferred from Russia to Ukraine".
Intercepts from
mobile phones, it is claimed, have revealed that a BUK missile launcher controlled by an all-Russian crew of between three and six men had crossed the Russia-Ukraine border at 1am on Thursday near the village of Sukhodolsk.
The launcher is said to have been tracked to the rebel stronghold of Donetsk and then escorted by rebel forces to the village of Pervomayski in the battle-torn area around Luhansk. Just after 4pm its radar system detected a large aircraft flying at 33,000ft. According to the official, the BUK's Russian operator reported the size of the aircraft to his commander, a junior rebel officer, who gave the order to launch a missile, believing the target to be a Ukrainian transport.
In a statement issued on Saturday, Security Service then said: "The SBU conducts investigative actions and receives irrefutable evidence that Russian citizens were involved in the act of terrorism", adding that, "the Russian side ordered terrorists to withdraw BUK launchers from Ukraine".
As a result, the SBU says, at 2:00 (am presumably) on 18 July (the day after MH17 had been downed, "two movers each with a BUK missile launcher crossed the Russian border in Luhansk region. At 4:00, another three movers: one of them empty, other carrying a launcher with four missiles and the latter allegedly with a control unit, crossed the state border".
A senior SBU official has also told
The Sunday Times that "the missile launcher that shot down the passenger jet was smuggled into eastern Ukraine from Russia on the morning of the attack and hastily withdrawn back over the border hours after the tragedy".
That the launcher was taken across the border to Russia after the attack is indeed possible, as
this report suggests. But that does not constitute evidence of the original source of the launchers. And where this gets especially interesting is that the SBU has posted several pictures of one BUK unit, on a low loader with a white tractor cab. The launcher is clearly an M1 model, with the vehicle designation 312 (pictured above).
From an entirely
different source, however, we see what appears to be exactly the same launcher, vehicle designation 312 (pictured below), claimed to have been filmed in March in the Gorlovka area, north of Donetsk (outside the separatist area), as part of a Ukrainian Army convoy. The
YouTube video
is here (see 37 seconds in).
If these two pictures do show the same launcher, and the March video does indeed show a Ukrainian Army unit, then the SBU have very kindly furnished evidence that supports the case that the launcher used to down MH17 was indeed captured from the Ukrainian Army on 29 June and subsequently repaired.
What is also possibly an issue is that while the Russians and the Ukrainians both use the BUK anti-aircraft missile system, the Ukrainians are equipped with the older M1 version, which pre-dates the break-up of the Soviet Union. Russian forces tend to use the upgraded BUK M2 model (NATO code SA-17 Grizzly), most easily identified by the different radar package (picture below).
There remains little doubt that the separatists did have one or more M1 launchers (possibly up to three). And such that we have reported already is further reinforced by
a report from an Associated Press reporter who claims that on Thursday 17 July that he saw a BUK missile system, alongside seven rebel-owned tanks, parked at a petrol station outside the eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne.
Then there is
this picture of the BUK missile system said to be in the possession of pro-Russian separatists, reported on 17 July, the location now identified as Gagarin Street in close-by Torez, one of the nearest towns to the MH17 crash site.
The appearance of the BUK M1 312 launcher (with the photograph published by the SBU) is of course entirely compatible with assertions made by analyst
Sergei Kurguinjan, who has it that a Ukrainian launcher was repaired by Russian "civil society" and put into use by the separatists.
This same report is expanded upon
here, with Kurguinjan claiming on 13 July in a video report (now deleted, but
possibly this one) that the separatists already had a BUK anti-aircraft missile system and that they were ready to use it.
According to Kurguinjan, styled as a pro-Kremlin political analyst, "Civil society delivers a large number of armoured vehicles and other equipment on private terms". He adds that, "Russian civil society will never cross the line and will supply very modest equipment. They will not supply Iskander or C-300 or other ambitious systems because it is not in [the] competence of a civil society to do so and because it is not needed".
He affirms that the separatists have BUK, which was allegedly "seized from the Ukrainian military". Kurguinjan goes on to say: "Our talented electricians will of course repair it. I think that they seized from the Ukrainian bandits - it is already repaired. They will restore it in the near future. It will be restored. It is possible that there are few of them".
The report closes with Kurguinjan stating unequivocally that the militants are ready to use the weapons. "I do not recommend to Kyiv to make any foolery", he says.
That the separatists had possession of the BUK system on and before 14 July can be triangulated with the SBU mobile phone transcripts, and also the downing of the An-26 which Kiev is now accepting was brought down by an SA-11. Yet part of the US intelligence case is that the launcher which downed MH17 was part of a convoy of 150 military vehicles that secretly crossed into Ukraine "days before the atrocity".
What is turning out to be typical of John Kerry's brand of "intelligence", though, there is no physical evidence offered of the existence of this convoy â much less that it included an M1 launcher. US assertions, it seems, can be
believed without the need for evidence, even when made by officials
on condition of anonymity, while Russian denials are
just denials.
You can see why Putin is not exactly impressed by what the West has to say.
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