Malaysian plane crashes on Ukraine-Russia border - live

[Paul Rigby]

For a very interesting case in defence of the photos, see here:

Attack of the "Boeing-777" fighter: true or fake? (Investigation)

Eugene Schultz

http://rusvesna.su/news/1416043616

Use Google Translate or Yandex to get the gist of these counter-arguments

The plot thickens: this piece suggests the naysayers produced so much detailed rebuttal so quickly because someone was monitoring the earlier eastern Russia broadcast of the TV news programme:

No, of course I can tell you that the program of the 1st channel goes to "Orbit" by satellite and seven hours earlier been broadcast in the Far East. The natural question arises: are we to believe that these independent online representatives of the enquiring classes regularly watch Russian TV channels in the Far Eastern time? Because that's why they had seven hours before Moscow transmission time to prepare their rebuttals. Somehow I struggle to believe it.

Read on:

http://rusdozor.ru/2014/11/16/snimok-so-...o-lozhnye/

[Magda Hassan]

Australian Eastern Standard Time (Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne Canberra) are on the same time zone as Vladivostok. FWIW.

[Paul Rigby]

Death of a Boeing

http://moment-istini.com/news/newsrus/2087.html

The latest information about the crash of the Malaysian "Boeing" in the sky over the Ukraine in the new documentary journalist Andrei Karaulov "How died" Boeing "?". On his independent investigation of the terrible tragedy in the film tells the journalist Arkady Mamontov. Versions are also divided politicians, military and pilots - Peter Deinekin, Leonid Ivashov, Iosif Diskin. Only international experts are in no hurry to disclose details of black boxes. Interest in the Western world to investigate the accident Malaysian "Boeing" disappeared immediately after Russia gave the world community irrefutable documentary evidence that our country is not in any way involved in this tragedy, and that most of the facts indicate that brought down " 777 "was precisely by the Ukrainian defense.

In the picture the first time named the 299th Squadron Air Force of Ukraine, Su-25, hull numbers 06,07,08 and 38, which, contrary to the statement of the General Staff of Ukraine, is indeed in the airspace of the country's 17 July 2014. Malaysian "Boeing", according to our data, was shot Su-25, hull number 08, which was piloted by Lt. Col. Ukrainian Air Force Dmytro Yakatsuts that from July 18 to this day is in the UAE. Malaysian "Boeing" led the Kiev center manager Anna Petrenko, which in the morning on July 18 unexpectedly went on vacation, out of which did not come back until now. In the film Andrei Karaulov "How died" Boeing "?" Are numerous other evidence, including a miracle obtained an interview the first mate of the current Minister of Defense of Ukraine that the Ukrainian Air Force was shot down "Boeing".

The full version of the film will be available after the broadcast of Channel Five program Moment of Truth from 24.11.2014 "Boeing"

[David Guyatt]

Interest in the Western world to investigate the accident Malaysian "Boeing" disappeared immediately after Russia gave the world community irrefutable documentary evidence that our country is not in any way involved in this tragedy, and that most of the facts indicate that brought down " 777 "was precisely by the Ukrainian defense.

So when did Russia give the "world community" irrefutable documentary evidence?

Was it, perhaps, at the G20 summit in Australia?

[Magda Hassan]

Something happened there and it didn't go well so Putin decided it was more worthwhile to leave early to go wash his hair.

[David Guyatt]

From Strategic Culture Foundation:

Europe Veering From US Abyss Over Russia?
Finian CUNNINGHAM 20.11.2014 00:00
It's long overdue but better late than never that Europe might just be back-pedalling on America's aggressive agenda towards Russia. The business-like visit to Moscow this week by Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier suggests that Europe can come to its senses to seek a diplomatic resolution of the escalating tensions over the Ukraine crisis tensions that could spark a wider continental war, or worse.
Steinmeier met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in which the pair stressed the need to find a political end to the violence in Ukraine. The German diplomat the first high-level European envoy to Moscow in several months also talked about normalising relations between his country and Russia and of finding a way to rescind the economic sanctions that Brussels has imposed on Moscow over recent months.
EU ministers in Brussels balked at imposing a fourth round of sanctions earlier this week, showing a growing division over the policy among European governments.
Interestingly, Steinmeier said his visit to the Russian capital was following up on positive discussions held last weekend with President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Australia. The German foreign minister said the task now was to prevent a new spiral of violence in Ukraine.
Given that Germany is the European Union's largest economy, we can fairly say that Berlin's political attitude is going to hold sway for the rest of the bloc.
Meanwhile, the contrast with the European attitude, as seen this week through Steinmeier, could not be sharper in Washington.
This week, the Republican-controlled Congress was pushing through a bill that will significantly increase military support to the Kiev regime. The ultra rightwing cabal, despite a fig leaf of elections last month, has clearly shown no interest in implementing the ceasefire brokered on September 5 in the Belarus capital, Minsk. Civilian casualties are mounting among the ethnic Russian population in Donetsk and Luhansk as the Kiev's military forces continue their practice of indiscriminate shelling of cities and villages with the use of banned weapons, including cluster bombs and unguided ballistic missiles.
Never mind violations of the Minsk Protocol, the murderous offensive by Kiev consists of multiple war crimes.
Nonetheless, the US Congress is unabashed and is in fact preparing to legalise massive overt military aid to this regime whose leaders, including its nominal President Petro Poroshenko, are becoming more and more unhinged, warning earlier this week of "not being afraid of total war with Russia".
Republican Congressman Michael Burgess, the author of the provocatively named Ukraine Freedom Act Support, said this week: "Ukraine [sic] needs weapons, ammunition, body armour and communication means. Of course, financial support is important but not as much as weapons and ammunition to fight off the Russian troops who invaded a sovereign country."
Note the assertion of Russian invasion by the Congressman without the slightest obligation to substantiate his claim. He probably heard it on Fox News or CNN and feels free to regurgitate it as incontrovertible fact.
The Kiev regime's reckless militarism over the past seven months has brought Ukraine's economy to its knees, with its currency crashing and soaring international debts unpaid chief among the creditors being Russia. Yet Washington sees the priority as not financial assistance but rather more militarism to provoke more aggression towards Russia.
After the Republican mid-election victory earlier this month, Congress is likely to pass the above bill. Henceforth, the US government will be enabled to openly supply lethal materiel, including anti-tank and air defence systems, grenade launchers, machine-guns and sniper rifles. This marks a baleful escalation of Washington's military intervention in Ukraine, which up to now has feigned its support for the Kiev regime as "non-lethal aid".
This is just what the US Republicans have been clamouring for. Last week, swivelled-eyed Senator John McCain said: "We want to give the Ukrainians [sic] weapons to defend themselves as the Russians are dismembering their country." McCain, another Fox-News-regurgitating politician, was one of the main international sponsors of the neo-Nazi shock troops who seized power in Kiev earlier this year and who now openly vilify fellow Ukrainians in the eastern regions as "sub-human Moskals".
Up till lately, Washington and Brussels have been singing off the same propaganda hymn sheet as the Kiev regime that they both railroaded into power last February in an illegal coup against the elected Ukrainian government. In an astounding inversion of reality, the US-EU axis accuses Russia of invading and subverting Ukraine. No proof is proffered and the words of the criminal, openly hostile and Russian-hating Kiev regime are promulgated as gospel truth.
Brussels has so far toed the Washington line of imposing sanctions on Russia for allegedly violating Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity. The fact that the people of Crimea voted freely and overwhelmingly to secede from the Western-installed Kiev regime in March and to join the Russian federation, followed by similar referenda for breakaway autonomy in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, is attributed, through a feat of double-think, to Moscow's meddling.
However, with the Western sanctions and Russian counter-sanctions taking the heaviest toll on an already recession-stricken Europe, the anti-Moscow nostrums are bound to be viewed with increasing leeriness. Tough talk may be cheap, even rewarding, for Washington, but not for the Europeans.
German exports to Russia tumble' reported the Financial Times at the end of last month, as a result of the standoff with Moscow the worst rupture in relations since the formal end of the Cold War more than two decades ago. Elsewhere it is reported that German industry and businesses are feverishly lobbying Berlin to revise the sanctions policy, which is threatening thousands of German jobs and the biggest bilateral trade between Europe and Russia.
As the EU's economic powerhouse, what is bad for Germany is automatically bad for the rest of Europe.
The new EU foreign policy chief Frederica Morgherini, formerly the Italian minister, has recently expressed misgivings about the effectiveness of sanctions. Morgherini took over from Britain's Catherine Ashton who was instrumental in the Western regime-change operation in Kiev and who had displayed a pathetic servility to Washington.
Other European states are also increasingly finding a more critical voice towards what they see as senseless and self-defeating hostility against Russia.
Hungary questions EU sanctions on Russia' reported the Financial Times on October 16. Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria and Austria have added their voices to question the official Washington-Brussels stance of trying to isolate Russia.
Serbia's Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has defiantly said that his country will not follow Brussels' sanctions on Russia, citing long-lasting historical and cultural ties with Moscow, even though Belgrade currently has EU accession status. Added to that are strong economic and investment ties between Russia and Serbia.
All these dissenting countries have a vested interest in developing the giant South Stream gas supply project from Russia, as well as from just maintaining decorous neighbourly relations. For them, the sanctions on Russia are tantamount to cutting off their nose to spite their face.
Perhaps the words of Vladimir Putin and other Russian leaders are finally beginning to win through reason and empirical evidence, or lack of it. Speaking at the Valdai Club in Sochi at the end of October, one of Putin's main points was that US geopolitical policy is aimed at driving a wedge between Europe and Russia out of selfish American interests. Competition for Europe's vast energy market is an obvious objective for the US, as well as the subordination of European economic policy to Wall Street and the US Federal Reserve. In short, the subordination of Europe to American capitalist hegemony.
Kremlin chief of staff Sergei Ivanov recently said that what is primarily motivating American hostility towards Moscow is that "Russia dares to have an opinion" on the future direction of global developments. This independence is seen for example in Russia's promotion of alternative international banking to the Washington-dominated IMF, or the use of bilateral currencies for seminal Eurasian energy trade instead of dependence on the US dollar.
Any sane person can see that Russia's policies are entirely legitimate and even desirable for a more balanced global economy and polity. It is ludicrous for the arrogant, self-declared exceptional American nation to criminalise Russia on this basis, and that is why Washington has used the Ukraine crisis as a cover for its unacceptable imperialist agenda.
European governments would do well to contemplate the self-indicting words of US Vice President Joe Biden. Biden told a meeting at Harvard University last month that European states were initially reluctant to adopt American sanctions toward Russia. "President Obama had to embarrass European leaders into it," said Biden with more than a hint of glee at Washington's power at bullying Europe. How's that for an atrocious admission?
Washington has everything to gain from plunging its so-called European allies into a new Cold War with Russia. And Europe has everything to lose.
But it seems now that a significant European constituency is at last waking up to the folly that has been foisted on its 500 million citizens by the likes of pro-American puppets Hermann Van Rompuy, José Manuel Barroso, David Cameron and Catherine Ashton. Will German Chancellor Angela Merkel or French President Francois Hollande grasp the courage to follow the diplomatic path being advocated by several courageous dissenting EU members?
One hopes that Europe is beginning to part ways with the US direction on Russia a direction that is leading to an abyss.
American politics is arguably the most corporate-controlled, brainwashed, intellectually devoid and dangerous institution that the world has ever known. The buying of the latest Congressional elections with $4 billion in corporate campaign funds (that is, bribes) is proof that the US is not a democracy it is a plutocracy. If Europeans have any residual democratic independence and enlightened reason, then they must find it and assert it urgently. Europe and Russia are far more natural allies than the warmongering American rulers could ever be.

[David Guyatt]

Interesting that "on August 8, 2014 the Ukraine, the Netherlands, Belgium and Australia signed a non-disclosure agreement on the crash investigation."

What's that about?

Justice for the MH17 victims is what we all need




VOLTAIRE NETWORK | MOSCOW (RUSSIA) | 3 NOVEMBER 2014

After keeping a meaningful two-month pause in covering the course of investigation of the MH17 tragedy, the international press has suddenly broke into another wave of baseless accusations against "pro-Russia separatists", triggered by a "secret report" made by the BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst, German foreign intelligence) for the Bundestag Control Committee on October 8, 2014. Ten days later the Spiegelalleged that at the meeting the BND president Gerhard Schindler had provided "satellite images and diverse photo evidence" to back up his case "proving that pro-Russian separatists captured a BUK air defense missile system at a Ukrainian military base and fired a missile on July 17 that exploded in direct proximity to the Malaysian aircraft". The allegation was immediately caught up by a number of other top international media [1].On October 20 Alexander Nerad'ko, the director of Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency, invited the German intelligence to publish documentation demonstrating the involvement of the insurgents or the Ukrainian army in the disaster. Unfortunately, his request is not met till now.Ironically, one day before BND presented its report to Bundestag, the former Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Frans Timmermans has casually let out that "the body of one passenger was found wearing an oxygen mask" [2].This piece of information trashes the theory (which we used to hold too) of a shoot down by a surface-to-air missile as in this case the instantaneous depressurization of the MH17 passenger cabin would cause immediate death of all passengers.Both Western and Russian experts understand that serious conclusions on the causes of MH17 tragedy should be based on professional forensic study of the wreckage and damaging elements. All available technical data from Ukrainian dispatch lines, surveillance by Russia and USA, information of the Ukrainian Air Defense and Boeing Corporation should be made available for the International MH17 investigation commission. All other "leakages" are pointless talks and deceitful manipulation of the public opinion. E.g. the British barrister Alexander Mercouris has provided a detailed analysis depicting numerous controversies in the German report (as least in its clauses leaked to the press).The Russian experts has already gathered all available data and released the Incident Report on MH17 tragedy back in mid-August this year. Its full text in English was already published by Voltaire Network [3]. Its concluding points are as follows (abstracts):

"9.1. In relation to the circumstances of the crash of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 jet.At 17.17-17.20, the Boeing 777 was in Ukrainian airspace near the city of Donetsk at the height of 10100 m. An unidentified combat aircraft (presumably a Su-25 or MiG -29), which was a tier below, on a collision course, in the cloud layer, sharply gained altitude and suddenly appeared out of the clouds in front of the civilian aircraft and opened fire on the cockpit, firing from a 30 mm caliber cannon or smaller.As a result of multiple hits from shells there was damage to the cockpit, which suddenly depressurized, resulting in instant death for the crew due to mechanical influences and decompression. The attack was sudden and lasted a fraction of a second; in such circumstances the crew could not sound any alarm as the flight had been proceeding in regular mode and no attack was expected.Since neither the engines or hydraulic system, nor other devices required for the continuation of the flight were out of commission, the Boeing 777, running on autopilot (as is standard), continued on its horizontal flight path, perhaps gradually losing altitude.The pilot of the unidentified combat aircraft maneuvered to the rear of the Boeing 777. After that, the unidentified plane remained on the combat course, the pilot provided a target tracking aircraft equipment, took aim and launched his R-60 or R-73 missiles.The result was a loss of cabin pressure, the aircraft control system was destroyed, the autopilot failed, the aircraft lost the ability to maintain its level flight path, and went into a tailspin. The resulting overload led to mechanical failure of the airframe at high altitudes.The aircraft, according to the information available from the flight recorders, broke up in the air, but this is possible only in the case of a vertical fall from a height of ten thousand meters, which can only happen when the maximum permissible overload is exceeded. One reason for stalling and going into a tailspin is the inability of the crew to control the aircraft as a result an emergency in the cockpit and the subsequent instantaneous depressurization of the cockpit and the passenger cabin. The aircraft broke up at a high altitude, which explains the fact that the wreckage was scattered over the territory of more than 15 square kilometers.9.2. In relation to the party responsible for the death of 283 passengers and 15 crew members.On 17.07.2014, the armed forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk National Republic had no relevant combat aircraft capable of destroying an aerial target similar to the Boeing 777, nor the necessary airfield network, nor the means of radar detection, targeting and tracking.No combat aircraft of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation violated the airspace of Ukraine, which the Ukrainian side confirms as well as third parties who conduct space surveillance over the situation in Ukraine and in its airspace.To establish the truth, it is necessary to objectively and impartially investigate all the circumstances of the destruction of the Malaysian Boeing 777, to interview the thousands of citizens who may have seen something."

The report triggered a number of journalistic investigations in Russia and was widely referenced in the documentaries released afterwards. The most detailed is certainly one recently released by the RT Documentary Channel:It provides a lot of evidence from the local witnesses, pictures of the debris, data of the Russian radar stations, expert interviews and even a forensic experiment involving air-to-air shooting test.

Below we are presenting some more exclusive evidence which was never aired in the English-language media regarding the presence of a Ukrainian combat aircraft in the vicinity of Boeing at the moment of the catastrophe:

<font color="#000000"><span style="font-family: Segoe UI"><font color="#3A3A3A">

Of course, there are plenty of parties interested in concealing the real facts about flight MH17. Symptomatically, on August 8, 2014 the Ukraine, the Netherlands, Belgium and Australia signed a non-disclosure agreement on the crash investigation.Procrastination and delaying of an objective investigation by these sides and international organizations raises doubts whether the concerned parties will make public the findings and true circumstances of the crash of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777. Are the relatives of those who died in the flight MH17 the only interested people in bringing the real perpetrators of this horrible criminal act to justice? Who will listen to Malaysian PM Dato' Sri Najib Razak's call?
Source
Oriental Review

From VoltaireNet

[Paul Rigby]

Death of a Boeing

http://moment-istini.com/news/newsrus/2087.html

The latest information about the crash of the Malaysian "Boeing" in the sky over the Ukraine in the new documentary journalist Andrei Karaulov "How died" Boeing "?". On his independent investigation of the terrible tragedy in the film tells the journalist Arkady Mamontov. Versions are also divided politicians, military and pilots - Peter Deinekin, Leonid Ivashov, Iosif Diskin. Only international experts are in no hurry to disclose details of black boxes. Interest in the Western world to investigate the accident Malaysian "Boeing" disappeared immediately after Russia gave the world community irrefutable documentary evidence that our country is not in any way involved in this tragedy, and that most of the facts indicate that brought down " 777 "was precisely by the Ukrainian defense.

In the picture the first time named the 299th Squadron Air Force of Ukraine, Su-25, hull numbers 06,07,08 and 38, which, contrary to the statement of the General Staff of Ukraine, is indeed in the airspace of the country's 17 July 2014. Malaysian "Boeing", according to our data, was shot Su-25, hull number 08, which was piloted by Lt. Col. Ukrainian Air Force Dmytro Yakatsuts that from July 18 to this day is in the UAE. Malaysian "Boeing" led the Kiev center manager Anna Petrenko, which in the morning on July 18 unexpectedly went on vacation, out of which did not come back until now. In the film Andrei Karaulov "How died" Boeing "?" Are numerous other evidence, including a miracle obtained an interview the first mate of the current Minister of Defense of Ukraine that the Ukrainian Air Force was shot down "Boeing".

The full version of the film will be available after the broadcast of Channel Five program Moment of Truth from 24.11.2014 "Boeing"

Russian-only, for the moment:

[video=youtube_share;m1QH03NtVQ0]http://youtu.be/m1QH03NtVQ0[/video]

Photograph of Anna Petrenko, the Kiev air traffic controller reportedly gone walkies:

https://twitter.com/SPB_citizzen/status/...68/photo/1

[Paul Rigby]

Satellite photo of fighter jet zapping MH17, appeared on a Russian forum a month ago

http://niqnaq.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/s...month-ago/

Update: Colonel Cassad reports that the still photograph first appeared on the Web on Oct 15, here (allow time for the autotranslator to work through the page). I've inserted the high-resolution copy of the photo (7406×5000) direct from that post. You can see Donetsk airport, to the west. The commentary says: "The image was obtained by mail from enthusiasts Russian Wikileaks, the source is not named. The time on the image corresponds to the time indicated in the data of objective control presented by the Ministry of Defense of Russia. According to the inscription, the international designations of time, the picture would be from the US satellite intelligence apparatus."- RB

[ATTACH=CONFIG]6419[/ATTACH]

[video=youtube_share;xhVbgWEvheQ]http://youtu.be/xhVbgWEvheQ[/video]

Hello from "Odnako"! At the disposal of Channel One was sensational picture, presumably made by a foreign satellite spy in the last seconds of flight Malaysian Boeing over Ukraine. On the eve of the most important meetings of world leaders at the summit of G20 in Australia, the story of the death of the passengers of this flight is more than relevant. The frame speaks in favor of the version, which in the West is almost never heard. It is known that at the summit in Brisbane, Australian Prime Minister Abbott is threatening to ask our President in the rigid form a question about Malaysian Boeing. We will try to facilitate his task. Back in August, the Russian Union of Engineers issued its report on the possible causes of the crash, which received fairly widespread in the media and the Internet. Experts conducted a detailed analysis of all available information from all sources, produced technical calculations and elaborated version of causes of death "Boeing". The conclusion of the experts was that the only technically possible version was the destruction of the Malaysian airliner with a missile and gun armament another plane. Pay attention to one point in the report is the absence of any credible evidence of the start of the missiles "ground-to-air". Start "Buk" is accompanied by a fiery cloud, a deafening roar that can be heard within a radius of up to 10 km, and inversion followed which is clearly observed in the sky for up to 10 minutes. In short, there was most likely no "Buk", no start from the ground. In the presence of district disaster dozens of professional observers from all sides and thousands unprofessional, no one has seen or recorded. While the aircraft was seen and recorded. And it was definitely not Russian planes. The arguments of the experts were heard on the Internet, the report was translated into English and German. First Vice-President of the Russian Union of Engineers Ivan Andrievsky said:

When we began to receive a large amount of information, among which was a different material, engineering calculations, and ultimately on Nov 12, we received this. "I fully agree with the results of your analysis of the causes of the crash of the Boeing," says the man who presented himself as a graduate of MIT, Aviaexport with twenty years of experience, George Bilt. "The Boeing was hit by a pursuing fighter jet. First, the crew fired from a cannon, then the cab was struck by an air-to-air missile, then the right engine and right wing were struck by a missile with thermal homing system." The photo which is clearly evident in the launch of the rocket from under the left wing fighter exactly at the cockpit, was attached to the email. On the terrain, weather conditions, the dimensions of the aircraft shot fully consistent with the circumstances of the accident. We saw a satellite image taken with not a very high orbit. And such images are usually made for general intelligence air and ground space. In accordance with the coordinates specified in the picture, we can assume that the picture was taken by a UKUSA satellite. We undertook a detailed analysis of this picture and no signs of tampering were found.

All versions should be considered, including the proverbial "Buk". The person who sent the picture, showing how the MiG-29 kills passenger "Boeing", whoever he was, of course, professional. In order to forge this requires even more professionalism than to access such information. Lord, you have these pictures! Or others! Show them, finally! Hands on the table! Because at the moment there is every reason to believe that the committed state crimes by those who destroyed the plane deliberately and cynically. And those who consciously and cynically hides it with exhaustive information. Goodbye from "Odnako"!

Revealing identity of the fake MH17 image author

Yury Barmin, Dec 8

https://medium.com/@yurybarmin/revealing...c6cfd76de8

The MH17 satellite image released by Russia's Channel One in mid-November instantly made the rounds on the Internet. The photograph allegedly made by a satellite suggests that the MH17 flight was shot down by a Ukrainian fighter jet rather than a surface-to-air missile that belongs to the rebels.

A letter with the image enclosed was sent to the Russian Union of Engineers by an expert who introduced himself as George Bilt, an MIT graduate with over 20 years of experience in aviation. Unfortunately for Channel One, the satellite image turned out to be a forgery as several media outlets that had examined the photograph described it.

Buzzfeed's Max Seddon and a Russian opposition journalist Ilya Varlamov both claim they managed to get in touch with Bilt (my e-mail to him, however, bounced back). According to them, the latter expressed his confusion at the fact that his findings were published by Channel One without any fact checking. It is suspicious, however, that Bilt seems to have replied to both Seddon and Varalmov with identical letters as their recent articles prove.

Some media outlets went an extra mile to blame the Kremlin for the image (consider this "Kremlin has mastered propaganda, but not photoshop"). As it always is the case with mainstream media, any news stories coming out of Russia and contradicting those of Western media should necessarily be masterminded by the Kremlin. Any attempts to prove this point wrong are attributed to the "Kremlin's hand" even more.

What is truly surprising about the MH17 satellite image to me is that those media outlets that made their investigations into this incident stopped short of finding out who actually posted it in the first place. Continuing the investigation seemed necessary and not all too difficult, which I tried to do and here are the results.

In his interview with Buzzfeed George Bilt, whom I couldn't track down online, claims he found the photograph on a Russian forum. Searching by image does bring up a result leading to a thread entitled "Ukraine shot down Boeing 777, evidence and facts from the satellite" on a Russian forum called OBKON (short for "Public Control of Authorities" in Russian), but this is where the mystery begins. The original image in high resolution was posted there on October 15, that is a month before Channel One's report.

The user who posted the photograph on OBKON, Duke Elliot (or Дюк Эллиот), posted the image the day that he registered on the forum, half an hour after that to be precise. The user specified that the image had been sent to him by Wikileaks "enthusiasts" from Russia. His profile page says that he lives in Moscow and was born on March 22, 1987, but just like his name this information cannot be verified and may well be misleading.

The image itself did not appear anywhere else on the Internet but for OBKON prior to its publication by Channel One on November 14. The said forum, however, does invite some questions. Its close inspection shows that the OBKON website is far from a real forum, rather a semblance of one with threads ranging from discussions of utilities rates in Russia to the crisis in Eastern Ukraine. The problem with this forum is that there is no genuine discussion happening there, but instead up to ten users post chunks of texts copied verbatim from news articles in Russian with their original titles and occasionally images and videos in various threads.

Between July 26 when the thread on MH17 was created and November 14 only 22 messages were posted in the thread, not too lively of a discussion. Interestingly though, the Russian Union of Engineers that got hold of the satellite image claims it had been sent to them on November 9, while the discussion on the said thread resumed on the very same day after having ceased on October 15, but this could be just a coincidence.

Duke Elliot posted a total of three messages on the forum, all in a span of three hours and all related to the MH17 photograph. His first post was deleted on November 14, after the image had been shown by Russian TV but not by its author. I sent a private message to Duke Elliot on the forum, but he never read it and did not access the website since his first visit on October 15.

My primary interest in contacting Duke Elliot was to find out what his motivation was for posting a potentially game-changing image on some shady forum with fake conversations. There are countless forums discussing the MH17 tragedy and aviation in Russia, which are far more popular than OBKON, so why out of all options choosing a website where the photograph would never be discovered?

Identity of the culprit

First version (the most obvious one):

Those bloggers who tried to identify the mastermind behind the MH17 satellite image mostly agreed that he was the moderator of OBKON. His nickname is Aleks and he's been with the website since 2011 when OBKON was created.

In his profile Aleks says he lives in Austin, TX, and is 44 years old. His real name is allegedly Aleks Ririllov, but there is no person with a similar name in any social network I checked. Aleks' profile on Google+ says that he lives in Wellington, New Zealand. Well, he resides neither in the US nor in New Zealand, but in the city of Omsk in Russia's Siberia and is a huge fan of the World of Tanks, an online game. From Aleks' videos on YouTube I concluded that he belongs to what is called "liberal opposition" in Russia and defends human rights in his native town. I also managed to find Aleks' e-mail, which I obviously sent a letter to, but with no success.

Two important aspects support the version that Aleks, OBKON moderator, was the one who at the very least posted the image online and possibly fabricated it as well.

The first post by Duke Elliot, the one that got deleted, read as follows: "Evidence that Ukrainian SU shot down the Boeing" (Screenshot I). The problem is that when Russian media started discussing this story they reported that a MIG fighter jet, and not a SU, shot down MH17. I said it already that Duke Elliot did not delete the post because the last time he logged in on the forum was on October 15. If not by the author the post must have been deleted by the administrator, which leads us to Aleks, the only administrator who visited the forum on November 14. In a wider context it becomes clear that the purpose of deleting the comment was to hide the fact that the message contradicted what was being reported by the Russian media. Only later it was proved that it was in fact a SU fighter in the image, and not a MIG (Screenshot II).

The second aspect that needs to be closely inspected is the way the satellite shots posted by Duke appear on the forum. Channel One's report about the MH17 image encouraged hundreds of people to sign up on OBKON and take part in the discussion in the same thread where Duke Elliot posted his "evidence." But here's what I noticed following the discussion on OBKON: whenever one of those new users posts a picture the image appears on the page with some sort of a small watermark in the lower right corner that says "obkon.ucoz.com" (Screenshot III). Unless you manually uncheck the option of a watermark it will appear in your image. The majority of those who are (still) discussing the fake image on OBKON haven't noticed that option to remove the watermark. The MH17 satellite image twice posted on the forum did not have the watermark. I can't believe that Duke Elliot, who had just registered on the forum, would be attentive enough to remove the watermark from his images. The moderator, however, would be perfectly aware of that, especially because none of Aleks' images contain this watermark.

Second version (the most realistic one):

This second person was extremely hard to find. Contrary to some reports out there he is neither an aviation expert nor a propaganda tsar, but an ordinary guy from Siberia with mediocre (as it turns out) photoshop skills who is closely watching the crisis in Eastern Ukraine.

His name is Yan, or at least that's what he called himself on VK, he lives in Kemerovo, a town in Siberia, and is a photographer with an interest in rock music and a taste for expensive guitars. Yan recently sold his Chinese CUV that he had bought in 2007 and most of his music equipment, including an equaliser, an amplifier and two electric guitars. Unlike Aleks, OBKON moderator, Yan has a pro-Kremlin position, and supports Russias strategy towards Ukraine in all of his comments.

I'll spare your time and won't go into details of how I found him because it took me hours of work to identify him. Just look at a profile picture that Yan once had on VK (it is an actual photograph of that guy) and you'll understand who is the real villain…Judging by circumstantial evidence I'm inclined to think it is he who posted, or at least fabricated, the satellite image. Having posted the MH17 photograph on OBKON Yan left an almost unnoticeable trail online. He shared the link to the image on OBKON in his comment to a random article on a pro-Kremlin website politonline.ru soon after posting the original photograph. He shared that link once again on VK two days later, on October 17, and two more times on RT on October 20. Yan is the only person to have ever shared a link to the image online before November 14, but his sensational posts never drew public attention, so he simply abandoned the idea of breaking his made-up story to the world.

Judging by Yan's taste for making up new identities, George Bilt could be a person of his own making. The most interesting detail about him, however, is that the day Channel One revealed what they thought was indisputable evidence of Ukrainian jet shooting down MH17 Yan deleted his account on VK. He also tried to delete the messages that contained links to OBKON from other websites, but I managed to retrieve some of them from cache.

I got in touch with several people who had Yan on their friend lists in VK; all of them denied they even knew him, but all of them promptly deleted Yan's inactive profile from their friend lists.

Third version (conspiracy):

And here is a conspiracy theory. This is simply to entertain you if you've made it so far. I took to social networks to verify my findings regarding Yan, but it looks like nobody really looked into the identity of mysterious Duke Elliot. Some Twitter users, however, came up with conspiracy-like versions of who could be behind the photoshopped MH17 photograph.

Eliot Higgins is a famous blogger who started a website for citizen journalism called Bellingcat. Higgins' website published a report that purportedly explains the origin of the Separatists' Buk earlier in November and was one of the first websites to share the findings related to the alleged fabrication of the satellite image. Several users on Twitter and Russian forums also attributed the MH17 satellite image to none other than Eliot Higgins.

It remains unclear if the story of the MH17 image fabrication from October 15 to November 14 was a carefully planned affair or a mere accident, which the Russian Union of Engineers and Channel One fell victim to. But one thing is clear, an ordinary photographer or a forum moderator, both of whom are from Siberia, managed to outplay the media both in Russia and abroad and tricked them better than any propaganda machine.

PS. This is a very amateurish investigation, which I wouldn't normally waste my time on. But in the last three weeks I spent more time at airports and hotels then ever before in life and this was a perfect pastime. Don't be too strict.

[Carsten Wiethoff]

This is an interview by a russian newspaper of a man who claims to have witnessed that MH17 was shot down by a captain voloshin of the ukrainian air force.
European papers write that russian investigators believe that man to be credible.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=qiH8KZOfNfg

This came out before christmas, but I did not notice it before.