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MALAYSIA AIRLINES PASSENGER JET CRASHES OVER EASTERN UKRAINE
The Jamestown Foundation is deeply saddened by the news of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17
from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, which crashed over eastern Ukraine,
approximately 31 miles from the Ukraine-Russia border, on Thursday, July
17. Our heartfelt condolences go out to the families of the 295
passengers and crew who were on board, including the reported 23 U.S. citizens, none of whom survived.
The
Boeing 777 airliner was flying at 33,000 feet over pro-Russian
rebel-controlled territory in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk
when air traffic control lost contact with it at 2:15 p.m. GMT. Press photos of the crash site show plane wreckage and human bodies strewn over a particularly large
area, suggesting that Flight MH17 broke up in the air before hitting the ground. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has said that the crash was not an accident, the plane was apparently shot out of the sky with a missile. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko noted, “We are not calling it an accident, or a disaster, but an act of terrorism.”
A spokesperson for the separatist forces has told reporters that they have found the Malaysian plane’s black boxes and plan on sending them to Moscow for inspection.
The
Ukrainian Ministry of Interior has alleged that insurgent forces in
Donetsk were responsible for downing the Malaysian passenger jet.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) claims to have obtained
and released an audio recording of a rebel leader admitting to a Russian military officer by phone that the
insurgents have shot down a commercial airliner.
The pro-Russian insurgents have denied
involvement in the crash, saying that they lack the capability to
target a plane flying that high and have claimed that the Ukrainian
military was responsible. The Ukrainian government, in turn, has
emphatically rejected this accusation, alleging that the Malaysian plane
was shot
down by a BUK
surface-to-air missile, while Ukraine’s military did not have any
ground-based air defense systems deployed in the vicinity. Journalists
covering the ongoing war in eastern Ukraine noted on several separate
occasions in the past few weeks that the rebels appeared to be in
possession of air defense systems that looked like the BUK—almost
certainly provided to them by the Russian military. Moreover, today, the
Russian-backed
Donetsk separatists have deleted a tweet they posted last month claiming to have captured a BUK air defense system.
This month, the Ukrainian military lost several military aircraft in the eastern Ukrainian conflict zone near the border with Russia. On Monday
(July 14), a Ukrainian Antonov-26 military transport plane was downed
by a missile that Kyiv claims was fired from Russian territory. And on Wednesday (July 16), Kyiv alleges that a Russian
fighter jet shot down a Ukrainian Su-25 attack plane over Ukrainian territory.
In recent analysis he wrote for the Eurasia Daily Monitor,
military expert Pavel Felgenhauer predicted that Russia would use its
air force to assist the rebels fighting against Ukrainian forces. And
last month, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told Russian
parliamentarians that Moscow might seek to create a
no-fly-zone over eastern Ukraine. It is unclear at this point whether
the downing of Flight MH17, assuming it was indeed shot down by a
Russian missile, was done deliberately as part of such a strategy.
According
to Jamestown President, Glen E. Howard, as investigators gather
evidence about this horrible tragedy, it is vital to learn who
authorized the use of this missile strike and where it was fired from.
It is seriously doubtful, Howard notes, that Ivan the Plumber–turned
rebel fighter from Donetsk could have the skills to operate weapons
system as technologically sophisticated as the one purportedly used in
the downing of the Malaysian aircraft. Moreover, investigators need to
ask where and what type of radar the system was using to find the Boeing
777 at 33,000 feet and more importantly, who authorized the firing of the missile at the civilian liner.
Was it Ivan the Plumber, or did the order come from a higher authority from the other side of the border?
* * *
Founded
in 1984, The Jamestown Foundation is an independent, non-partisan
research institution dedicated to providing timely information
concerning critical political and strategic developments in China,
Russia, Eurasia and the world of terrorism. Jamestown produces three
periodic publications: Eurasia Daily Monitor, Terrorism Monitor and China Brief. Jamestown research and analysis is available to the public free-of-charge via Jamestown’s website, www.jamestown.org.
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