Photo of downed Ukraine SU-25 wreckage online
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At July 16 2014 an Ukriane SU-25 aircraft was shot down. According Ukraine authorities the aircraft was shot down by an Russian Air Force fighterjet.
The wreckage was found close to the Ukriane-Russian border. Some photos the the wreckage appeared online, It might provide some insights into the weapon that caused the shotdown.
Lostarmour has more photos (on top of the page.) This site also has some photos.
Damage of the Antonov 26 which was shot down at July 14 2014 can be seen here. Here Ukraine authorities claim as well that the aircraft was downed by an air to air missile. Initially the claim was the aircraft was downed by a SAM.
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MANPADS. Some witnessed saw this happening near Saur-Mogila on the 16th.
Correction. Ok, it’s sill likely a MANPADS, but the witnesses (Ukrainian soldiers) do not get confirmed yet.
Fact1: Su25s have no own radars and rely on ground radars for guidance.
Fact2: Ukraine claims that Russia’s planes are shooting theirs.
Given the above, can anybody explain Ukraine’s decision to move out military radars from the area and switch off civilian radars on the 17th?
Rebels said 16jul they downed it from above 6km.
UA said it was downed above 8km.
Dutch investigated it indeed was downed from above 6km. So no manpad.
Damage does not look like continuous rod.
What a2a missiles RU use on their helis?
When “an26” was coming 17jul, the RU heli was waiting on the border…
IIRC RU helis can destroy air target to 30km distance.
> UA said it was downed above 8km.
Wasn’t it you telling recently the SU25s could not fly that high?
> Damage does not look like continuous rod.
It was likely an Igla, which has a fragmentation warhead.
sotilaspassi, I am not replying to all of your comments containing rubbish statements, which are many, as I am resource limited.
What was it doing at >8 km? Hiding behind civilian airliners?
>Wasn’t it you telling recently the SU25s could not fly that high?
No. You are trolling.Trolls should be blocked.
After quick look, Igla with fragmentation warhead does not reach above 6km.
>What was it doing at >8 km? Hiding behind civilian airliners?
You are trolling.Trolls should be blocked.
The plane was above 6km, trying to escape above MANPAD/strela10 range.
Mind trolling is done by users who frequently make suggestions which are factual incorrect. As Piman hardly commented on this site, I do not see him as a troll.
sotilspassi, we don’t know what the Su25’s altitude was. For an attack Su25s very often have to descent, for using bombs, unguided rockets or the gun. That time the battle was raging somewhere near Sour-Mogila. So, for what we know, if Su25 was engaged militarily there, there must have been times when it was low.
Eugene, what about the russian radar data? Putin was unleashing a proxy war in its neighbor country and its soldiers/supported groups were under attack of Ukrainian fighter-jets. A bit strange assuming that Russia wouldn’t closely monitor the area (radar) by itself with too much at sake there…
Both are legitimate questions! You just tend to forget one by purpose!
– „Putin was unleashing a proxy war in its neighbor country …“
The Ukrainian people do not seem to see it that way (exept the Ultra-nationalists).
In the European Song Contest Ukraine televoters gave Russia douze points.
It seems to me that most Ukrainians know who the real enemy is : their own politicians and oligarchs.
I thought this place is not about political view discussions? NOw you start one! Fact is that Russia send its tanks into a neighbor country and not Kiew into Russia. Only a certain kind of people still denies that. Putin who is a fan of non-intervention in other countries should have left his troups and secret service agents at home. A quite simply fact any peace-supporting person can hopefully agree to.
Now you blame only Ultra-nationalists seeing it this way. I would say that is a very onse-sided and Ukraino-phobic claim. And yes, many Ukrainians and Europeans still see not Russian people as enemy but the Putin government and its goons. So what do you want to tell? That it is ok to attack your neighbor, or that Ukrainian politicians have not bettered? That’s no real news, or?
But a country sending in weapons and military to support an uprise they helped to create in another country should be interested to observe the sky by radar when their men are under threat by enemy fighers? That is not a political discussion but a valid thought related to the discussion on MH17. So I wonder why no-one asks Russia here to finally hand out their data? They don’t have it anymore – yes, the same believable as Ukraine had no radar operating!
A special question for you: Were the internal fights & problems in Vietnam a justification for the intervention of the United States? I guess I would agree with you in that case and the same is also valid for Russia.
This is certainly NOT a place for political discussion. Do you at Bellingcat.com or any other forum not moderated.
I appreciate discussion on the cause and circumstances.
How do you see my statement about Russian radar observing the area as “political discussion”? It is not me, starting those discussions. A political party in a military conflict where own troops or a supported proxy-army is under attack by enemy fighter jets and yet Russians don’t look precisely at what happens in Ukraine? This is not a political discussion. I raised a logic assumption. I do not believe that Ukraine’s radar stations were accidentally all non-operative that day. The same is valid for the other day. Very unbelievable, don’t you think yourself so?
When we want to know the truth, why not ask both sides to release their data? Why only Ukraine?
correction: The same is valid for the other party (Russia)
oliver, Russia likely has more radar data than they publicly say. Very likely. But there is a political play going on. So, accept that either party is not going to show all the cards they’ve got. It’s regrettable, especially for the victims’ families, but this is what we’ve got to live with.
Isn’t that exactly what I wrote Eugene?
Russia has radar data, and Ukraine probably as well. I don’t understand why you started discussing that…
Of course this situation must be cruel for the victim families. I just asked why the blame game heres is mostly played towards Ukraine? Shouldn’t we ask both to release their data?
> Shouldn’t we ask both to release their data?
You are obviously not reading Marcel much
Oliver, I do think that we’re dealing with a “civil war” much more than anything else. Putin did not “unleash a proxy war” – tens of thousands of people were protesting in the east of Ukraine after the ousting of the President that about 90% of the population voted for. You could have a look at pictures from the last Victory Day and see how it was celebrated in Donetsk, organized by separatists etc – it could give you an indication about the level of public support. As for who is fighting on the ground, I’ll allow myself to quote Ivan Katchanovski at length below, and check the article for further reference-
“Government propaganda and media coverage vs. statistics and academic research concerning the war in Donbas: A just published list of 1,572 people who joined armed formations of DNR in summer of 2014 shows that 78% of them were Ukrainian citizens, primarily from Donbas, 19% Russian citizens, 2% citizens of other countries, primarily Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Moldova, and Israel, and 1% had unknown citizenship. This list, which was leaked and published on a government-linked website in Ukraine and reported by the Ukrainian media without revealing this crucial information, contains similar overall composition by citizenship as the list of separatist officials sanctioned by the Ukrainian government and the list of the top warlords in Donbas. Such descriptive statistics provides a quantitative measure of the separatist forces composition, and it corroborates findings of my research. My estimates based on nearly daily examination of various sources indicates that this list contains a majority of new members of separatist armed formations of self-declared DNR in summer 2014. There was a similar domination of Ukrainian citizens among a comparatively smaller number of members of the original DNR formations in spring 2014 and among comparatively larger number of members of such armed units members since fall 2014 following a direct Russian military intervention in Donbas in the end of August of 2014.
This statistical information is another illustration that denials of the civil war in Donbas and claims of a conventional or a “hybrid” war between Ukraine and Russia, which was waged by covert units of the Russian military forces since spring 2014, were propaganda and disinformation, which were invented by the Ukrainian and the Western governments and disseminated by the media that the social media. The same concerns similarly widely and uncritically-disseminated claims by the SBU that it captured numerous Russian Military intelligence and FSB groups two years ago and similar claims about some 9 thousand-strong regular Russian military forces or Russian-dominated separatist forces in Donbas by the Military Intelligence of Ukraine, other Ukrainian government agencies, NATO, and the US government. There have been no corroborating evidence in support of such claims in contrast to various such evidence of a direct intervention and involvement in combat by a few thousand-strong Russian regular forces in August 2014 and February 2015.”
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2016/05/5/7107654/
I should add that I’m not trying to turn this into a political discussion – the commentary above is meant to provide some sort of less-biased version of events, supported by facts and numbers. I’ve followed a great deal of photographers, journalists, political activists and others who have visited the East of Ukraine. Many of them have talked to separatists and all have concluded that the vast majority of them are locals.
Putin wasn’t unleashing a proxy war so there was no need for Russian radar to closely monitor Ukrainian airspace.
Yes, you are absolutely right! Their were no Russian soldiers in Ukraine, no weapons sent over. No russian propaganda about a genocide, no GRU agents named Girkin telling they were pulling the trigger in eastern Ukraine and of course Ukrainians soldiers were just killing themselves. No impacts craters coming from over the russian border, etc. The world is flat and you know all the facts!
Is this the level of discussion here? People persist to add substantial input to a discussion about MH17 here, but it seems we’re still back in 2014 discussing Russia’s incredible statements of little green man, minor’s self defence and so on. If one sees the world like you, I bet there was really no need for russians to observe the area with their own radar, because … tada … Russia is not part of the conflict 🙂
I’m strongly convinced that Russia had military radar close to the borders to see what Ukrainian movements are. Russia was involved in this conflict by sending their own troops over the border, so please. If we point the finger towards Ukraine about missing radar data, then why not as well to Russia?
Oliver, I wonder if you with the same intensity criticize the numerous US military adventures, or them setting up puppet regimes all around the world. At lease the Ukraine East and Russia had serious historical ties, essentially it is the same people (the same religion, culture, holidays, etc). Ukraine as a country is never even mentioned in any documents from a century ago, it was a part of Russia. So even if Russia is helping the rebels to fight Ukraine’s new authorities, who only got to power due to a US funded military coup (with a little help of Nazi ideology), they have a case.
Yes, Russia helps the break away regions, supplies rebels with ammunition and fuel, pays pensions, gives gas and electricity. But I see why they are doing it and share the idea.
The admin, however, should be removing these political discussions as they never can lead to a settlement, unlike technical arguments.
Guys, last warning before I start to remove postings: this is not a forum for political discussions. Please stop now!
I guess you mean the Ukraine “never mentioned in any documents from a century ago, it was a part of Russia” that your country assured safe borders in the Budapest memorandum? And yes, countries, their shapes and borders have changed over time. That is called history. Ukraine by the way has a far longer one than Russia and people firm in Russian history don’t neglect that in such a chauvinistic way.
I as a German know of the bloody past of Europe as well as you do and I’m happy that we live nowadays in a Europa where we don’t need to bully our neighbors with military force. What has happened in the past is the past. Our responsibility is not to let such things happen again and to ensure we can live peacefully together. That’s at least what I draw as responsibility from the past crimes of my country. It would be good to see Russians carrying the same way for their own past in a differentiated way and not to fall into the trap of glorifying past days or denying the existence right to their neighbors.
That’s it. No attacking. Just a wish for peace in Europe with a certain sense towards pejorative words about your fellow neighbor countries as a lecture from my own countries past. And as you might have gotten from my words, I also condemn certain actions by the US and even went protesting against them. I’m just not blind towards “whataboutismn” and what I don’t like about US foreign policy, I can’t suddenly find good if done by Russia.
So let’s end this discussion. It has nothing to do with the particular facts of the MH17 case. I hope admin can let this stand as closing words as I’m not attacking anyone here and hope we can all find ourselves together hand in hand for a peaceful Europe of independent states without wars.
These are indeed closing words. Next posting which is offtopic will be deleted.
as promised deleted by admin
Do you mean anything of what you say, Ol1ver? Are you ready to bet money on that? Please clarify. Regards.
Looks like MANPADS. Just for example.(Osetian war 11.08.08. SU-25 piloted by Ivan Nechaev): http://govorim-vsem.ru/user/upload/file276671.jpg
This effect is known since the times of Afgan war. When missile destroyes engine small parts of turbine blades fly apart with great velocity destroying everything on the way. Because of this circumstance in oreder to safe the second engine the developers put the titan plate into the fuselage.
A side note. Nothing to do with the 777 crash, but still an interesting issue, because it is ingenious. The effect you are describing does take place, and the flying blades often hit the other engine, destroying it too. Engineers tried to counter this by covering the engines with armor, but that was turning out too heavy. In the end they decided to armourplate one engine of the two. This works because if one engine dies, another is still capable of bringing the plane back safely, like what have likely happened on the picture you’ve posted.
Now, I tried to make a case for the image to be of a genuine Buk on a trailer. I’ve found a drawing of a Buk on trailer with as forward location of Buk as possible (here: http://mh17.webtalk.ru/viewtopic.php?id=330&p=16#p45730). The drawing is not contested on mh17.webtalk,ru, even if it might be somewhat unrealistic because Buk is leaned against the forward bending knee of the trailer). I’ve tried to position the drawing as much forward as I could on the satellite image, moving both cabin and the back noticeably forward. So, when you look at the picture carefully, you’d normally want to move my insert (on the bottom part of the image) back.
This has shrunk the shadow mismatch, but not enough. Over three meters of a mismatch still remain, which is greater than the image resolution (~1m)
http://uploads.ru/K5WZL.png
I wish Marco had a look at the issue, as he must be fluent with interpreting the sloped satellite pictures (our case however is moderately sloped.)
Russian article on Su-25 shootdown:
http://lifenews.ru/news/136731
The Militia shot down a Ukrainian plane at the border with Russia
Before that, the pilot crossed the air border of our country.
The Ukrainian air force aircraft entered Russian airspace, I made a turn and began to leave towards Ukraine, but was shot down by militias at the height of six thousand meters, told LifeNews source in law enforcement bodies of the Rostov region. The incident occurred at about 19:00 on July 16.
Fighter was seen in Russia. The plane could be seen even from Kuybyshevo, – said the source. – He did a u-turn and headed in the direction of Ukraine, however, the militia managed to shoot it down.
According to preliminary data, the aircraft pilot managed to eject. Downed the plane crashed on the territory of Ukraine.
Another Russian article on this shootdown. Note the time and the weapons.
Twitter @Zarusskiy_Org, July 17, 2014, 18:03 pm EEST
The NSDC of Ukraine lies that the Russian air force shot down a Ukrainian su-25. The militias have a lot of MANPADS and several SAM “Buk”: http://www.zarusskiy.org/russia/2014/07/17/buk/?utm
Zarusskiy.Org – Новости Великой России
17.07.2014
The NSDC of Ukraine lies that the Russian air force shot down a Ukrainian su-25. The militias have a lot of MANPADS and several SAM “Buk”
Stating that Russia shot down a Ukrainian su-25, national security and defense Council of Ukraine was a lie and uses the principles of propaganda typical of totalitarian and fascist regimes, the Director of the Center for analysis of world arms trade, a member of the Public Council at the Russian defense Ministry Igor Korotchenko.
In the Council of national security and defense of Ukraine said earlier that Russian military aircraft missile shot down a su-25 of Ukrainian Armed forces over Ukrainian territory.
“Russia is not involved and does not plan to participate in the Ukrainian domestic armed conflict, which develops in the East. It is regrettable that at the present time, officials of the national security Council use the principle of Goebbels: “the more monstrously the lie, the faster will believe it,” said Korotchenko, misleading many of the resources of Putin’s propaganda.
He also added that the militia DND and LNR in the fighting against Ukrainian troops captured as war trophies a significant number of man-portable air defence systems (MANPADS), as well as several launchers SAM “Buk”:
“Existing militias have the potential allows to effectively destroy the Ukrainian planes and helicopters in the very different altitudes of their combat use,” – said Korotchenko.
Eyewitness accounts from Snizhne of the SU-25 shootdown.
Zhenyok Gribovsky – witness to SU-25 shootdown at 6:55 pm
https://vk.com/wall235893372_14836
I just saw the shootdown of a fight jet.
Somewhere in the direction of Marinovka
Oksana Denisova and others – heard anti-aircraft fire from north side of Snizhne at SU-25 that was shot down at 6:55 pm
https://vk.com/wall235893372_14840
what kind of explosion heard at 18(th mine)?
A plane was hit and I saw how and heard it fall!
That is just from the side of 18(th mine)! literally 5-7 minutes ago!
And where exactly did it crash on the 18th have no idea?
The plane was not shot down, but shot at and unfortunately was not hit.
Anastasio Tomko – wife of eyewitness and supplies photo
https://vk.com/wall235893372_14843
https://vk.com/wall235893372_14893
Comrades!!! shot down another plane!!!! Crashed between Marinovka and Tarany on the field!!!! eyewitness-my husband!!!
Twitter – – July 16, 11:57 pm , @Brzdac – July 17, 12:12 am
Russian invaders firing #MANPADS at Ukrainian air force Su-25 over #Snizhne
6500m MPADS?
Thanks Andrew. Not read all those before.
https://slavyangrad.org/2014/07/17/briefings-july-16-2014/
12:00 – July 16, 2014 – Briefing from the LPR Militia for the First Half of July 16, 2014
“At night and in the morning, enemy fighter aircrafts ascended into the sky on several occasions. They flew at a substantial elevation, no less than 6,000 metres.”
19:42 – July 16, 2014 – Briefing from Igor Strelkov
“Heavy fighting continues near Marinovka. The village was twice bombed from high elevation.”
21:50 – Briefing from Igor Strelkov
“From Snezhnoye, they are reporting that a second Su-25 was shot down with three shots from a portable anti-aircraft unit. This is the work of anti-airfact personnel of Battalion Oplot.”
23:02 – July 16, 2014 – Information from LifeNews Journalists
“The Militia shot down a Ukrainian aircraft on the border with Russia. A source in the law enforcement structures of the Rostov region told LifeNews that an airplane of the Ukrainian air force entered Russian airspace, performed a turn and departed in the direction of Ukraine; however, it was shot down by the Militia at the height of six thousand meters. The incident occurred at approximately 19:00 on July 16th.”
https://slavyangrad.org/2014/07/16/situation-analysis-and-comment-british-military-consultant-july-16-17-2014/
“John Kohchang is ex-British Army. Here, he offers some brief considerations based on his sixteen years service in the British Army, and seven years as a private military contractor.”
“The Militia need to keep a life-line with Russia open at all costs, but, again, holding static defensive positions against an enemy with control of the airspace is nigh on impossible with only Man Portable Air Defence Systems (MANPADS) as air-defence. If Russia is still playing the ‘we-are-not-involved’ routine then South Ossetia or Crimea could provide some (as stolen or perhaps as AWOL). One hundred and eighty-nine Ukie military bases were taken over in Crimea. Of these, the 55th Air Defence regiment at Yevpatoriya and 50th regiment at Feodosia had S-300 and Buk-M1 weapons systems. Is this wishful thinking…? I do not know how porous the Crimean border is but we have witnessed one 9K35 Strela-10 (SA-13 Gopher) in Militia hands: where did it come from?”
From the link above :
„Of these, the 55th Air Defence regiment at Yevpatoriya and 50th regiment at Feodosia had S-300 and Buk-M1 weapons systems.“
Could a S-200 or S-300 be used against MH17 ?
Warhead 150 kg HE focused fragmentation with selectable in-flight proximity fuzing capability :
http://www.armyrecognition.com/russia_russian_missile_system_vehicle_uk/s-300v_9k81_antey-300_sa-12_gladiator_giant_air_defense_missile_system_data_sheet_specifications.html
+some ru helis use igla missiles with fragmentation warhead.
So it really could be downed by igla from helicopter. Perfect maskirovska.