Pro-Russian separatists accuse Ukrainian forces, Ukraine, in its turn, Ukraine blames militants of the Donetsk People’s republic. At that, while any facts proving Ukrainians’ involvement are still hard to find, a number of situations imply that terrorists did have their hand in downing a Malaysian airplane.
1. Terrorists take responsibility for the attack
The rebels, in particular, one of their leaders Igor Girkin-Strelkov, actually claimed to have shot down a government An-26 in the general area of the MH17’s demise. The social media claims in question have been retrospectively deleted.
Igor Girkin aka Strelok (‘Shooter’) boasts of downing Ukrainian plane An-26 not far from the town of Torez. ‘We warned you. You shouldn’t have flown in our sky! This ‘bird’ sank to a dirt pile and didn’t touch the inhabited area. No civilian suffered.’
2. Terrorists’s BUK ground-to-air missile system near the site of attack
Local Ukraine residents say they saw rebels with missiles shortly before taking down the plane. Anton Gerashchenko, an Adviser to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, confirmed that terrorists downed the plane near the town of Torez from an anti-aircraft missile complex, which was mentioned by eyewitnesses numerous times. Dmytro Tymchuk, head of the Information Resistance group, also wrote on his Facebook that separatists in the town of Snizhne (Donetsk region) had a Buk.
3. Interception of terrorists’ talks
The Ukrainian security agency states they have intercepted pro-Russian terrorists’ talks proving that they happened to shoot down the passenger jet. As it follows from the recording, a man, allegedly Igor ‘Bes’ Bezler, the leader of a Donbas terrorist group, informs Vasiliy Geranin, Russian intelligence Colonel, of the downed plane. Terrorists named ‘Mayor’ and ‘Grek’ are also involved: it seems they could not foresee that civilians would die.
{movie}Terrorist Bezler reports about the plane to Russian intelligence Colonel Geranin.|right|17518{/movie}
4. Terrorists possess necessary weapons and repeatedly downed Ukraine’s aircraft in the region.
One should also take a pro-Kremlin political analist’s words into account: on July, 13 Sergei Kurginyan stated that terrorists had Buk ground-to-air missile system and were ready to use it. ‘I believe that our talented electronic engineers <…> have already repaired the Buk that was seized from Ukrainian Banderovite bandits.’
{movie}Terrorists have repaired their Buk ground-to-air missile system.|right|17517{/movie}
The Buk is able to shoot down aircraft at the height of up to 18 km. The Malaysian Boeing was taken down being at 10,000 m above ground level. The pattern of wreckage, the state of the corpses, suggests a catastrophic in-air impact and then rapid descent, not a crash from engine or system failure. Again, this speaks to a missile attack, and there do not seem to have been Russian or Ukrainian fighter jets in the air near there.
