BBC docu The Conspiracy Files: Who Shot Down MH17?
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BBC will soon air a new documentary on MH17 titled “The Conspiracy Files: Who Shot Down MH17?“. The documentary is made by Mike Rudin.
The program will be aired at May 3 , 9 PM to 10 PM on BBC Two.
Dutch TV program Zembla bought the rights of the BBC docu and will broadcast it at a later date.
Mike Rudin spoke to several people with knowledge on MH17. Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat will be in the program.
BBC will discus some of the scenario’s and fakes likes the faked photo of a fighter jet launching a missile. BBC Russia had an interview with Rudin. A complete overview of what is in the program can be read in this BBC blogpost.
English newspaper Sunday Express exposed some of the content of the BBC program.
Billy Six, a German investigative journalist , interviewed 100 witnesses, seven of whom said they saw a fighter jet. Six said: “One of them even told me how he saw it launch a missile. It was like a small line in the sky going into the clouds. Then he heard the big boom.
There is also a story that the CIA placed two bombs onboard the aircraft. This is clear nonsense as the main damage was caused to the cockpit and from the outside.
The program will be about:
On 17 July 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, crashed, killing 298 passengers in the worst air disaster for two decades.
Alarmingly, the devastating crash occurred just four months after the mysterious disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370. Is this just a coincidence? The cause of the crash has been focus of a host of conspiracy theories, many of which involve Russia, Ukraine and the CIA.
The official investigation report into MH17 flight argues that only a powerful ground-to-air missile could be responsible. Yet, there are eyewitness accounts of other aircrafts seen flying next to MH17 close to impact. To further fuel the conspiracies, Russia and Ukraine blame each other but both countries are unable to provide all the critical radar data from that day.
Family members do not trust the official explanations and there is a long way to go to bring about justice for the victims. This programme tracks down eye witnesses, and speaks with secret intelligence sources to try to sort fact from fiction. Don’t miss this compelling Conspiracy Files unfold to see whether the mystery can be unravelled.
update May 4 2016:
The episode can be seen here
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Will be interesting to watch still, though I expect bias. BBC has been generally biased in the Ukraine-related news, but elements of truth were present from time to time.
What puts me off a bit about investigating the whole Mh-17 affair is that I am pretty sure that both the US and Russia know the perpetrator and have strong evidence but keep it private. What we see (e.g Zaharova press events, or Belingcat’s exposing members of the Russian brigade (if those soldiers were really involved in the shooting, BC would be asked to keep quiet about them, not to disturb the investigation process)) is a charade for the public. We, the investigating community, are on our own to establish the truth.
I am pretty sure that Putin, in his spy style, first would use the behind-the-door potential of the evidence before going public with it. The US would likely too. I’ve been guessing who has the upper hand observing the US-Russia geopolitical struggle. It’s not obvious at all if either party yields to the other geopolitically. For example, the recent delivery of S-300s to Iran seems to be clearly against the US/Israel interests, while the US continues extending their weapon arsenals in Europe (eg in Baltic countries), which is against Russia’s.
What is clear though, is that the US foreign policy is fucking up the rest of the world, while the US is doing just fine. The induced war and economic hardship is somewhere far away. The Europe struggles with refuges and was hit a bit by Russia’s sanctions and reduction in Russia tourists. Russia has an economic downturn as the result of West sanctions and falling oil prices. But the country that has been fucked up most of all is Ukraine, who the US chose to be the next geopolitical stick to poke the bear with. Russia has decided not to be involved in any nuclear arms reduction treaties, and in its position is a right move – the nuclear arsenal is the only thing holding advances of the US hegemony. But the the world only looses after such moves.
Again, the US is doing just fine. So if we can assume that they’ll continue acting from the position of selfish interests, the fucking up of the world by the US foreign policy will continue.
Regarding the “russian position” on MH-17:
As far as I am aware RT (Russia Today) released three documentaries about the MH-17 tragedy:
“MH-17: The Untold Story” (October 22, 2014)
“Reflections on MH17” (January 26, 2015)
“MH17: ‘No one deserves to die that way'” (July 17, 2015)
In these documentaries RT always argues that MH-17 has been shot down by a fighter jet and presents eyewitnesses which support this fact.
Yes, and I think this might be a true Russian position. But, note that Russia’s many experts should have a very good idea on what weapon was used, but it is not named. This may lead one to think that either Russia is not naming the weapon to benefit the behind the scene political play or Russia is indeed guilty.
“This may lead one to think that either Russia is not naming the weapon to benefit the behind the scene political play or Russia is indeed guilty.”
You forgot a third possibility :
Russia is not keen to blame Ukraine. The medium- to long-term hope may be that an economically consolidated Ukraine approaches Russia again. So Russia will not do anything that weakens Ukraine.
It is not an empty slogan when they speak of the Ukrainians as “brothers”.
“Brothers” are ordinary Ukrainians, but not the current political regime.
I’m wondering if Russia has unofficially identified the missile. It’s weak, but I’ve noticed two things lately.
1. If you open the albert_lex .pdf report and look at the document properties the title is listed as “Министерство обороны Российской Федерации” which machine translates into “Russian Ministry of Defense”.
http://csef.ru/media/articles/6318/7f0b6f60405b3923f1cbb21efb2b7692.pdf
2. In the latest edition of the recent feud between Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Bellingcat, Higgins wrote, “Your specific examples are a summarization of two blog posts from the LiveJournal “albert-lex.” In some cases, the phrasings in your letter to us are lifted almost verbatim from this blog.”
https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/articles/2016/04/22/the-russian-ministry-of-foreign-affairs-presents-its-evidence-of-mh17-fakery/
It’s thin, but maybe Russia is pointing unofficially at the Python missile.
> I’m wondering if Russia has unofficially identified the missile.
I think so.
> which machine translates into “Russian Ministry of Defense”.
It is MoD. Good spot. Bellingcat made a lot of noise recently about MoFA copying text from albert-lex. What happened is that they essentially copied from another government agency. Not much of a sensation. Albert-lex specifically declared that the document was obtained from a specialist taking part in many crash investigations, so probably from an official body. I am pretty sure that albert-lex source is the same as where this guy Zahar Omarov (he was part of the Russian team communicating with the DSB.) comes from:
http://aviapanorama.ru/2016/02/rejs-mn-17-v-cnii-vvs-minoborony-rossii-oprovergnuty-vyvody-gollandskoj-komissii/
becasue the contents of the guy interview and albert-lex’s analysis rhyme nicely:
albert-lex: warhead size <40 kg, fragment count 4000
Omarov: warhead size <33 kg, fragment count 4000
(they did not even care to change the document properties…)
Marcel, you had contact with Rudin too. Will you be televised in this show?
I know others were asked to be interviewed too, but declined to cooperate based on the shady reputation of both Rudin and BBC in this matter. People were afraid being framed as conspiracists.
Of course I did sent him a list of important dissident research articles 🙂
I was indeed contacted by Rudin. After a Skype interview I never heard of Rudin again. I guess I was not conspiracy enough 😉
Maybe Rudin should visit his colleague from the Mirror. They wrote about the DSB report in their story on Ruvin: “It made accusations of a cover-up are being made as the report highlights potential for a botched autopsy in which fragments of shrapnel were deliberately removed from the body of the pilot.” But it didn’t.
It seems BBC is not serious this time. Just playing around with silly RU invented conspiracies.
It would interesting if someone could figure out any sane alternative to BUK vs the damage seen on mh17.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/663787/Ukrainian-fighter-jet-shot-Russian-crash-MH17-BBC-documentary
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3556177/Was-MH17-shot-Ukrainian-fighter-jet-BBC-documentary-claims-Boeing-777-targeted-plane.html?login#readerCommentsCommand-message-field
It is interesting to read what The Express and The Dailymail made of this Documentary. This was certainly not what Rudin meant to show.
The media hype about the BBC documentary was turned on today like flipping a switch.
The documentary will, with an assist by Higgins, use some lunies to discredit everyone who doubts the official story.
That exactly was my hunch too. So most dissident investigators/bloggers who were approached, declined to cooperate with Mark Rudin.
I also belong to the circle of those who are convinced that the documentary will draw all not line-toeing opinions ridiculed.
Higgins “No no no. NO” on twitter were crocodile tears.
You are right. It’s all explained here
http://www.bbc.com/russian/international/2016/04/160425_mh17_bbc_conspiracy_files
Strange it’s just on BBC Russian service. But the purpose of this programme is very clear.
The interview with the programme maker Mike Rudin confirms the suspicions of some commentators here. He’s clearly tryng hard to cast doubt on any alternative to the official version.
Translation:
Summary of what he says: The Ukrainian side is open on the subject, whereas Russians refuse requests for interviews and have sometimes given wrong information. The Ukrainian military jets that people claim to have seen were really just parts of the Boeing that had broken off. SU-25s could not have shot it down because they can’t fly so high and their missiles are not powerful enough. The article doesn’t mention the possibility of a shootdown by a fighter jet from a lower altitude or from a Ukrainian BUK or some other S-A missile. He seems to support the belief that MH17 was hit with rockets fired from near the rebel-controlled town Red October.
Looks like it might be one of those programmes with ‘Porn’ in the title but without actual porn once you’ve decided to watch it.
It seems anything is ok to air…..except the theory that Ihor Kolmoiskyi’s men shot the plane down with a Ukrainian buk. It’s ok to peopose any theory but that one
Article from Rudin about the documentary:
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35706048
1. “Ukrainian Su-25 shot down MH17. Nick de Larrinaga, European editor of IHS Jane’s Defence Weekly, says the idea is “absolute nonsense”. The Su-25 is a close air-support aircraft, designed to operate just above ground level, attacking tanks and other vehicles”
2. “On that day – 17 July – he said the Ukrainian Air Force hadn’t flown over the rebel-controlled area”
The fact that ukrainian fighter jets DID fly on that day can’t be denied: too many witnesses to be simply dismissed as it’s done in this article.
3. “As the rebels had no air force, the Ukrainian Army had no need for air defence”
Ukrainian media: March 2014
https://m.censor.net.ua/video_news/274823/ukraina_zaschischaet_donetsk_ot_napadeniya_rossii_zenitnoraketnye_kompleksy_buk_zanimayut_pozitsii_fotovideo
Ukrainian army was protecting skies from *Russian agression* – remember planes which Ukraine claimed were shot down by Russians:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28345039
4. “The mass of switches and indicators clearly needs to be operated by highly trained military personnel. As defence analyst Igor Sutyagin points out, that expertise is present in the Russian Army, it is not likely to be present among the rebel militia”
If alleged BUK was operated by highly skilled personal then how would they “lock on the wrong aircraft”?
Does anyone know if a single BUK (without supporting units) was ever used to shoot the target? I haven’t searched for that.
Another point: if UA jets/jet were around MH17 but at lower altitude (since it “can’t fly at 33,000ft”) – wouldn’t it be easier for BUK operator to distinguish btw 2 aircrafts?
5. “The route ends in the corner of a large field, about 15 miles (25km) south-east of where MH17 was hit and about a mile east of the village of Red October – a field right in the middle of the area identified by the Dutch report as the likely launch location”
Journo from BBC was trying to find launch spot but didn’t find anything
https://youtu.be/Sa_R2NA1txc
If you read this article you will spot a lot of inconsistencies, hardly balanced & impartial…
Rudin wrote: “an Ukrainian air strike just two days before MH17 crashed. Eleven civilians were killed.” Actually the Ukrainians denied they were responsible for the attack, suggesting it was a Russian provocation. Ukrainian air defense was on high alert from the 12th of July on. Why would they have done that?
Intercepted talks between “Terrorist” by the SBU July 17 “H: “finally now we’re having a little break. We’ve just hit a plane, Su–type. Because we’ve got BUK–M. They (Ukrainian soldiers) are now in Zelenopillja, trying to break free, but their way out is only through me. Yesterday we hit 2 Su jets, today – another two. Thank God “BUK–M” arrived today in the morning” (Kyivpost 19 July). So the Ukrainians are lying or they are lying.
Can a Su-25 operate at e height of 10 km. Yes it can according to Ukroboron Service. It all depends on the version. On the other hand, Rudin gave a good explanation what the witnesses might have seen.
There’s hardly anything new in what Rudin said on bbc.com yesterday. As expected, all the Ukrainian and western allegations, ‘evidence’ and interpretations are just accepted as facts. Any arguments against the official theory are misrepresented and are seen as Russian state-sponsored conspiracy theories.
Nearly everything he says has been covered on this website before and probably will be again, but I’ll just mention a couple of things that stood out.
In a long interview about MH17 conspiracy theories, the most outlandish one of all was missing. That’s the one from the SBU that the Russians shot it down when they mistook it for their intended target, an Aeroflot passenger plane flying from Moscow to Cyprus. According to the SBU, this was a false flag operation that was supposed to provoke a Russian invasion.
http://www.sbu.gov.ua/sbu/control/en/publish/article?art_id=129860&cat_id=35317
Another thing that’s hard to understand is how the witness in Red October village could have heard the plane exploding about 20 km away. That would be unlikely even when the sky is clear, but the clouds that day should have blocked much of the sound.
It’s also not clear how the witness figured out the connection between the rocket fire and the explosion when they were a couple of minutes apart. After that length of time, you’d expect the two bangs to be from completely different events.
Listening/looking the BBC document from youtube.
Interesting document of the silly theories around MH17.
Amazing how some people still seem to believe in them.
The BBC used only part of the recording with the intercepted phone call with Besler, how convenient. If they had used the original recording provided by the SBU, the viewer would have known the lying started with the Ukrainians from the first day on.
Ray McGovern: “task is who ever lies first wins” the first lies:
1)
2) http://tass.ru/en/world/741164
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Sotilaspassie
The LifeNews item was made very shortly after the Strelkov_info message and contains exactly the same information, including a video of the smoke coming from the burning wreck. It was aired so quickly that even in the SBU intercepted calls in which Cossack leader Kozytsin appears, they are saying, when they have discovered the remains of the Malaysian plane, they thought it was an AN26 because they saw that on the news.
Now we know all information of the Strelkov_info posting was circulating on social media within the first 40 minutes after the crash, on pro- and antiMaidan fora alike. Even our big friend WowihaY reiterated within 20 minutes or so the tags AN26 and the mine Progress. The smoke video was first uploaded, if I recall corectly, at 17:02, Strelkov_info published at 17:16.
So this was all jumping to conclusions and posting wrong information. That it was written or aired by people with direct knowledgde of how things had gone in the fields, is of course a fallacy, used disingeneously to concoct a story of a ¨confession¨ which was removed after it was found out there was made ¨a mistake¨.
Your second source is more interesting. It has been published more than 3,5 hrs after the crash, long after everybody knew it was all about a malaysian plane. Its a mystery how a large press agency can copy wrong news long after has been established what was going on. ¨Eyewitnesses said¨… So there were eywitnesses of the firing itself, right beside the Buk? Perhaps they just copied the RIA Novosti Dispatch from 17:18 EEST – those journalists were apparently awake and in the field – in which an eyewitness says he saw a rocket at approx. 16:00 hrs.
In the early days when authority still was ubiquitous people said things were true because the papers had brought it. Don´t tell me you use this argument again.
The photo in the tass.ru link was made by Stanislav Krasilnikov.
It shows the wreckage of the AN-26 from July 14 !
Stanislav Krasilnikov works for several western media like the guardian, etc.
It could be that in the early stages of the desaster russian media were staffed with material from western sources.
Worrying:
Private (RUSSIAN?) investigator + team of 150 detectives, were working inside UKRAINE for 6 years.
They were on the crime scene before DSB, collecting evidence !!!!!
They say they could not find BUK fragments!!! Or did they?
Is this the reason why so few fragments were found, they were collected by this team? (+ the thieves who were recorded stealing cargo)
And is this the reason why so little of cockpit surface/skin was recovered?
Sotilaspassi! Other posts of yours kind of made some sense, and weren’t such disgusting. Regards.
Sergei Sokolov is a former head of security who worked for Boris Berezovsky. He occasionally comes up with these kind of unbelievable stories. I read about this story in Komsomol Pravda, they interviewed. However, in a comment the reporter wrote he didn’t believe a word of it. The BBC wants to make us believe, there is some kind of conspiracy behind these stories, instigated by the Kremlin. How ironic.