Former Ukraine chief investigator of MH17 “Ukraine BUK captured in Crimea could have downed MH17”

Vasyl Vovk was involved in investigating the crash as chief investigator for Ukraine’s SBU security service until June this year. Then he all of a sudden got fired. The reason is so far unknown.

Vasyl Vovk worked on the case for nearly a year, up to June 19, the Joint Investigative Team confirmed to broadcaster NOS, but it criticized Vovk for not exercising caution with his statements.
He was among Dutch, Australian and Ukrainian experts that pulled apart multiple samples of Buk missiles to determine if the forensic evidence found with the plane wreckage and in the bodies matched the material used to make the weapons.

In October 2016 Vovk did an interview with online newsagency ZNAJ. In the interview he told he went to the Netherlands 5 times. He was good friends with Wilbert Paulissen, head of the national Dutch bureau of investigation. Paulissen in head of the investigation team. Vovk even slept in his house.

His answer to the question below was very remarkable:

Have you considered a version that the plane could shoot down by Ukrainian Buk?

 – Of course, it was a parallel version, which we checked. We found for sure what there wasn’t any our BUKs at that moment. However, one of our working version about Ukrainian BUK is still active. Ukraine BUKs were in Crimea and after the annexation the Russians got it. Girkin came from the Crimea and got weapon from Russians. That’s why Ukrainian Buk could have been brought from the Crimea too, but it shot from separatist controlled  territory and was operated by Russian military personal.

Well, that is a totally different story Vovk told so far.  In various interviews in 2015  he was sure the BUK came direcly from Russia.

Vovk is known for weird and antisemite statements. Recently Vovk wrote on his personal Facebook site messages in which he  threatened to “destroy” the country’s Jews, Jerusalem Post reports. 

Simon Wiesenthal Center  joined calls on the Ukrainian government to take action against retired Security Service General Vasily Vovk.

Screenshots of the Facebook post are here and here

In April 2015 Vosk stated in tv program  Svoboda Slova (‘Freedom of Speech’) on Ukraine’s ICTV, according Sputnik

 that dissidents “shut their mouths” if they want to remain alive.

In August 2015 Vovk talked to Ukraine Segodnya

He told the names of 6 suspects were known: three from Ukraine and three from Russia.

In October 2015 it seems SBU started a media campaign a few days before JIT would present the preliminary results of the criminal investigation.

At October 6 2015 Dutch Nieuwsuur TV has an interview with Vovk. It can be seen here.

Vovk had an interview with Reuters in Vinnytsya, Ukraine, October 9, 2015

“I am confident that this missile system was delivered from the territory of the Russian Federation with a high-skilled crew – most likely a crew of well-trained officers, of course from Russian territory,” he told Reuters.

http://www.nltimes.nl/2015/10/07/report-buk-missile-fragments-found-in-bodies-of-mh17-victims/

Vasyl Vovk was quoted in Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta at October 11, 2015 :

“The leading role in the investigation does not belong to the Netherlands
Anyone who says that the leading role in the investigation belongs to the Netherlands or to someone else, is not right. All the information – and it has accumulated a colossal array, and it is not yet fully worked out by us – is in the SBU, Ukraine.”

In the same interview Vovk also said the  “one of the strong countries in the world has satellite images of the launch of the missile” (source)

International Business Times at October 8, 2015 reported this statement by Vovk:

The transportation of a weapon like a BUK through the Russian – and shooting from it without any instruction from above – is not possible. Soldiers were not able just to take this heavy weapon away. The Russian minister of defence must have known about it,” Vovk was quoted as saying by The Mirror.