World War Three Thread....

[American Patriot]

Looks like Americans might NOT have been on the plane now.



Home / 2014 / July / #MH17: What we know so far – UPDATED

#MH17: What we know so far – UPDATED

Ryan Evans
July 18, 2014 · in Commentary


Events are fast-moving, but it is important to be clear about what we, in the public domain, know so far about MH17 and the surrounding circumstances. This post will be updated throughout the day (LAST UPDATED 9:47 AM EST, 18 July). Please alert us to new information as well as any errors.

• MH17, a Malaysia Airlines passenger plane, crashed in eastern Ukraine with 295 298 souls aboard (including at least three infants). It was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur (see the Malaysia Airlines tweet announcing lost contact with the aircraft here).
• Preliminary reports indicate that among the dead were 23 Americans, as many as 10 Britons, and 71 Dutch citizens
• Among the dead are 189 people from the Netherlands, 44 from Malaysia, 27 from Australia, 12 from Indonesia, 9 from the UK, 4 each from Belgium and Germany, 3 from the Philippines, and 1 each from Canada and New Zealand. That still leaves the nationalities of 4 passengers/crew unreported.
• About a third of the passengers were traveling to a major AIDS conference in Melbourne, Australia. Joep Lange, a famous AIDS researcher and former president of the International Aids Society, was on the plane. Many other famous researchers who were working on an anti-AIDS vaccine may have also been on the plane.
• The plane was flying at 33,000 feet and fell off radar between Donestk, a rebel contested city, and the Russian border.
• Right before reports of the crash were announced, separatist leader Igor Girkin claimed “we just downed a plane, an AN-26…We have issued warnings not to fly in our airspace.” The AN-26 is a turboprop military and civilian transport plane. This claim was made on a social media site and was removed once reports on MH17 came out. Girkin is a Russian citizen from Moscow and the Ukrainian government alleges he is a Russian intelligence asset.
• A pro-Russian, pro-separatist website based in Crimea reported that separatists claimed to have a Buk self-propelled surface-to-air missile system. An an adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Minister claims that Flight MH17 was brought down by a Buk missile system. Watch this video of the Buk missile system in action (with an odd soundtrack). See the specs on the Buk here.
• On the day of the crash, an Associated Press reporter claimed to have seen a Buk missile system in Snizhne, a rebel held town in Ukraine’s east. Snizhne is very close to the area where MH17 crashed.
• U.S. intelligence officials claim the plane was taken down by a surface-to-air missile. According to The Wall Street Journal, “U.S. agencies are divided over whether the missile was launched by the Russian military or by pro-Russia separatist rebels…”
• On the morning of the crash, Pentagon Spokesman Colonel Steve Warren said, “We are concerned about the build-up we see along the Russia-Ukraine border. Overall, the increase in Russian presence along the Ukrainian border is concerning.”
• The night before the crash, White House officials held a conference call with reporters during which officials claimed that Russia continues to supply Ukrainian seapratists with weapons, including heavy weapons.
• A Ukrainian Su-25 jet was shot down over the Donetsk region on 16 July. The Ukrainian government blamed a Russian warplane. Separatists claimed responsibility. Russia denied responsibility.
• On 14 July, a Ukrainian military An-26 transport jet was shot down from an altitude of 21,000 feet with eight crew on board. Ukraine Security Service chief Valentin Nalivaychenko said the plane was hit by a Russian missile fired from the Russian side of the border. Two members of the crew were taken prisoner by rebels.
• Tatyana Dvoryadkina, co-chair of the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic said: “We do not have any idea what this is about and who shot down the plane. We’re heading there now to investigate everything independently.”
• President Obama and President Putin have spoken on the phone at least once.
• Alexander Boraday, the “prime minister” of the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic, said he might be open to a two to three day truce to allow the remains of the airliner and its passengers to be recovered.
• Ukrainian officials claim that the separatist rebels have taken the plane’s black box and plan to hand it over to Russian authorities.
• Many world leaders are calling for a truce in the budding Ukrainian civil war.

Ryan Evans is the editor-in-chief of War on the Rocks

[American Patriot]

Here's the IMPORTANT part:

Right before reports of the crash were announced, separatist leader Igor Girkin claimed “we just downed a plane, an AN-26…We have issued warnings not to fly in our airspace.” The AN-26 is a turboprop military and civilian transport plane. This claim was made on a social media site and was removed once reports on MH17 came out. Girkin is a Russian citizen from Moscow and the Ukrainian government alleges he is a Russian intelligence asset.

[American Patriot]

Anger intensifies over shot down MH17 flight

Ukraine, Donetsk rebels trade accusations of shooting down plane; eyewitnesses: 'jet exploded mid-air'

Anger deepened around the world Friday with the United States demanding an "unimpeded" international inquiry after a Malaysian passenger jet was apparently shot down by a missile strike in separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 on board.
The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 came down in a cornfield in the strife-torn region on Thursday, leaving a horrific trail of carnage on the ground, with the United States claiming it was shot down in a missile attack.
Kiev accused pro-Russian separatists battling Ukrainian forces of the "terrorist act" as stunned world leaders called for a full investigation into the disaster, which could further fan the flames of the worst East-West crisis since the Cold War.
The White House response to the tragedy was a clear rebuttal to Russian President Vladimir Putin's charge that Ukraine's crackdown on separatist rebels stoked tensions that led to the crash.

"While we do not yet have all the facts, we do know that this incident occurred in the context of a crisis in Ukraine that is fuelled by Russian support for the separatists, including through arms, material, and training," the White House said in a statement.
News of the crash sent European, US and Asian stock markets tumbling. Shares in Malaysia Airlines plummeted almost 18 percent on Friday morning.
The downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, enroute from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, heaps new distress on Malaysia and its flag carrier, which is still afflicted by the trauma and global stigma of flight MH370's disappearance four months ago.
The father of one MH17 stewardess wept as he expressed the vain hope that his daughter could be alive.
"We are just hoping she survived even though we know many are dead... We pray that somehow she is safe and comes home," Salleh Samsudin, 54, said of 31-year-old Nur Shazana Salleh on Malaysian television.

One devastated relative told how her sister Ninik Yuriani, 56 -- of Indonesian descent but a Dutch national -- was on her way to Jakarta to celebrate the Muslim festival Eid.
"My family is now gathered at my sister's house in Jakarta. We've decided to keep this from my mother. She's so old and weak, I don't think she could take it," Enny Nuraheni, 54, told AFP.
International fury
Dozens of mutilated corpses and body parts were strewn around the smouldering wreckage in the village of Grabove, near the Russian border. Shocked residents of the village said the crash felt "like an earthquake".
Malaysia Airlines said 283 passengers and 15 crew were aboard the plane - including 154 Dutch nationals, 43 Malaysians, 28 Australians, 12 Indonesians and one Israeli.

As many as 100 of those killed were delegates heading to Australia for a global AIDS conference, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
President Barack Obama warned evidence among scattered debris must not be tampered with as the United States called for a prompt investigation.
The UN Security Council called an emergency session on Friday to discuss the disaster.
Singapore's foreign ministry also demanded a "full and transparent investigation" in a statement Friday.
In a strongly-worded television address Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said if the plane had been shot down by military weapons "this is a violation of international law and even the laws of war".
Comments attributed to a pro-Russia rebel chief suggested his men may have downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 by mistake, believing it was a Ukrainian army transport plane.

"This is a tragic day, in what has already been a tragic year, for Malaysia," Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak told a press conference early Friday after announcing an "immediate investigation".
Najib added that a team of disaster response specialists had been dispatched to Kiev and that authorities in Ukraine had agreed to try to establish "a humanitarian corridor to the crash site".
'Blown out of the sky'

In calls with pro-Western Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Obama put down an early marker on the necessary conditions for an air accident investigation.
The White House said that Obama told Rutte the United States was prepared to contribute "immediate assistance" for "a prompt, full, credible and unimpeded international investigation."
Two US officials told AFP that intelligence analysts were reviewing the data to see whether the missile used to down the aircraft was launched by pro-Moscow separatists, Russian troops across the border or Ukrainian government forces.
"We are working through all the analysis," said one official, adding that there was little doubt that the plane was struck by a surface-to-air missile.
In Detroit, US Vice President Joe Biden said the plane was "apparently... and I say apparently because we don't have all the details yet... shot down. Not an accident. Blown out of the sky."
Poroshenko's spokesman said he believed pro-Russian insurgents downed the jet in the crisis-torn country, where fighting between separatists and the Western-backed government has claimed over 600 lives.
"This incident is not a catastrophe. It is a terrorist act," the spokesman, Svyatoslav Tsegolko, said on Twitter.
A flurry of comments on social media by rebel chiefs claiming they had shot down a Ukrainian army plane in the exact spot the Malaysian plane went down were hastily removed as they appeared to realise their error.
Alexander Borodai, prime minister of the self-proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republic", meanwhile told AFP that separatist forces would be ready to commit to a truce for several days to allow full access to the site.
The shooting down of civilian aircraft is extremely rare, and if proved the case, the downing of the MH17 would be one of the deadliest yet.

[American Patriot]

I just heard a statement from the lady at - I think it was the UN or NATO, not sure. I only caught a second or two of it.

Ok, was UN.

She said the fire came from INSIDE RUSSIA.

Rebels MUST BE DISARMED IMMEDIATELY.

Folks, this aint going away.

Obama has to meet Reagan standards on this.....

[American Patriot]

U.S. intelligence confirms pro-Russian rebels shot down Malaysian plane

[American Patriot]

Putin TV Spins Every Crash Cause Except the One West Sees

By Jake Rudnitsky and Anatoly Medetsky Jul 18, 2014 8:14 AM MT

July 18 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Representative Mike Turner, a Republican from Ohio, talks about the downing of a Malaysia Air passenger plane yesterday and Russian President Vladimir Putin's role in the fighting in Ukraine. He speaks with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television's "In the Loop." (Source: Bloomberg)

Russian state television has reeled off almost every possible reason why a Malaysian Air passenger jet exploded over rebel territory in eastern Ukraine except for the one western military experts say is the most likely: a Russian-made missile fired by pro-Russian insurgents.
Within hours of the crash, Rossiya 1 speculated that Ukrainian fighter pilots shot down the plane after mistaking its red-white-and-blue livery for Vladimir Putin’s presidential jet returning from Brazil. The channel failed to mention that Putin stopped flying over Ukrainian airspace after Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea in March.
Then Channel One, the most-watched station in the country, said the rebels did indeed shoot down a jet, but it wasn’t flight MH17. Rather, it was a Ukrainian warplane that had just destroyed the Malaysian Air jet. The channel cited a woman it identified only as Tatiana as saying she saw two planes in the area at the same time.
The current rallying cry, voiced by officials including the speaker of parliament, Sergei Naryshkin, is that Ukraine’s aviation authorities are “criminally negligent” for letting the Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur flight cross a war zone at all. Missing from this version is who actually fired the missile.

Photographer: Dominique Faget/AFP via Getty Images

A piece of wreckage of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 on July 18, 2014 in Shaktarsk.

‘So Many Lies’

“I switch the channel now as soon as I see news about Ukraine comes on,” Elena Gurman, a 30-year-old Muscovite who works at a passport and visa center, said today. “Our generation has seen so many lies -- Perestroika, the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Chechen war. They say one thing on TV and then as soon as the ‘top secret’ label goes away the truth turns out to be completely different.”
After coming to power in 2000, Putin regained government control over every major TV outlet in the country, pushing vocal dissent to the corners of the Internet. With the Kremlin managing the tone and topics broadcast across the country, his approval rating has risen to 86 percent, near an all-time high, boosted by hosting the Winter Olympics in February and the annexation of Crimea.
State television is the authoritative voice for most Russians who live outside major cities, allowing the Kremlin to use the Ukraine conflict to boost Putin’s popularity, according to Lev Gudkov, director of the independent Levada Center polling group in Moscow.
War Boost

“People can’t check who shot down that plane like they can check if groceries are getting more expensive,” Gudkov said today by phone. “The strategy, which is controlled by the Kremlin’s political technicians, is extremely effective. Even the Sochi Olympics couldn’t do to Putin’s rating what the Ukraine conflict has. The last time his rating was comparable was during the war with Georgia in 2008.”

Photographer: Alexei Nikolsky/AFP via Getty Images

Russia's President Vladimir Putin looks on while speaking with journalists in Itamaraty... Read More

Nikolai Levshchenko, a 40-year-old former Russian officer who was born in eastern Ukraine during the Soviet era, said he relies on Rossiya 24, a 24-hour state-run news channel, and other government media for information.
“I don’t fully support the government,” Levshchenko said today in central Moscow. “But Kiev is violating our borders and killing innocent civilians and children. We should have a more muscular response.”
For Sara Firth, a London-based reporter for the government’s English-language cable network Russia Today, the state-ordered coverage of yesterday’s tragedy was too much to bear, according to Press Gazette.
The U.K. newspaper cited Firth as saying she quit because she was fed up with the “level of disrespect for the facts.”
Rogue Missile

Putin told ministers yesterday that Ukraine’s government was responsible for the downing of the Malaysian Air (MAS) plane, which killed all 298 people on board, because it wouldn’t have happened if there were no war, according to a transcript of the meeting. Putin said he ordered all his agencies to do everything to “investigate this crime.”

Photographer: Dominique Faget /AFP via Getty Images

A picture taken on July 17, 2014 shows the wreckage of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17... Read More

Ukraine’s state security service said it intercepted phone conversations among militants about the missile that struck down flight MH17 about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from Russia. The rebels denied the accusation. Evidence so far indicates that the jet was hit by an SA-11 or Buk weapons system, according to four U.S. officials who asked for anonymity because the probe is continuing. The missiles, widely deployed in eastern Europe, are mounted on vehicles that resemble tanks.
Russian television has made frequent reference to the accidental downing of a Russian passenger jet by Ukraine’s military in 2001. A Sibir airline Tupolev 154 flying from Tel Aviv to the Siberian city of Novosibirsk exploded over the Black Sea in October of that year. Ukraine initially denied responsibility for the crash. It later admitted that a stray anti-aircraft missile downed the jet in error.
“It’s difficult to believe what they say on TV because there’s no authentic data,” said Mikhail Voronkov, 32, a system administrator in Moscow. “It’s sad that unverifiable information is being broadcast on state television. It’s probably a propaganda ploy. Maybe we’ll be told later why they are doing this.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Jake Rudnitsky in Moscow at jrudnitsky@bloomberg.net; Anatoly Medetsky in Moscow at amedetsky@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Hellmuth Tromm at htromm@bloomberg.net Brad Cook, Paul Abelsky

[American Patriot]

Putin and NATO set for new clashes over Ukraine after jet downed

WIRE SERVICES

KIEV — The Associated Press

Published Friday, Jul. 18 2014, 2:19 AM EDT

Last updated Friday, Jul. 18 2014, 11:05 AM EDT
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AA

The downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 injects a new sense of crisis into the standoff between Vladimir Putin’s Russia and NATO-bloc countries over the conflict in Ukraine.

The aircraft carried 298 passengers and crew from a dozen nations. There were no survivors. Among the victims were scientists and other specialists attending the annual international conference on AIDS research that opens this weekend in Melbourne, Australia.
More Related to this Story

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One Canadian
among dead in plane crash: reports

ATTENTION EDITORS - VISUAL COVERAGE OF SCENES OF INJURY OR DEATH An Emergencies Ministry member works at putting out a fire at the site of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 plane crash in the settlement of Grabovo in the Donetsk region, July 17, 2014.
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In pictures: Scenes from crash site of downed Flight MH17 in Ukraine
A senior vice president for Malaysia Airlines said on Thursday that at least 154 Dutch citizens were on board the passenger airliner that crashed in eastern Ukraine. Video quality as incoming. (July 17)
Video
Video: Malaysia Airlines official details passenger list

Video
Video: Smoke and debris fill air near crash site of Malaysia Airlines plane

All sides are calling for a thorough investigation to determine what happened to the aircraft and who is to blame – if, as appears likely, it was shot down on Thursday over disputed terroritory near the Ukraine-Russian border by a missile.

But it will be difficult to secure the scattered crash site and conduct an impartial probe of the evidence. There is much at stake: whoever is proven repsonsible for shooting down the civilian passenger jet will find few friends in the international community.

Meanwhile, accusations and denials continue to flow from Moscow and Kiev, as well as the loosely-organized armed militias roaming the contested area of east Ukraine where the wreckage lies.

The United Nations Security Council is to discuss the matter on Friday afternoon.

The key developments so far:

SECURING THE SCENE

Russian President Vladimir Putin called for a cease-fire Friday in eastern Ukraine and urged the two sides to hold peace talks as soon as possible. But Ukrainian and NATO-bloc leaders are waiting for actions to match those words as the crash scene, scattered over 15 kilometres, remains in the control of pro-Russian militias who have been fighting a bloody guerilla war against Ukraine forces for over a month.

Germany’s Angela Merkel underlined the need for a broad ceasefire and used a Friday news conference to issue a “very clear call” for Mr. Putin to help make this happen.

One prominsing sign: A pro-Russian separatist leaders said on Friday his group would welcome experts from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and from Ukraine’s government to the crash site.

The OSCE said 30 observers and experts from the organisation, which has monitors in the region, had reached the site on Friday.

The plane’s two black boxes - voice and data recorders - were recovered, but it was unlikely they could determine who fired the missile.

Further complicating any investigation, local people were seen removing pieces of wreckage as souvenirs. The condition of the metal can indicate if it has been struck by a missile.

FBI and U.S. National Transportation Safety Board personnel are headed to the region to serve in an advisory role for the investigation, a U.S. official said.

THE BLAME GAME

U.S. intelligence authorities said a surface-to-air missile brought down MH17 as it flew from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, but could not say who fired it. The Ukraine government in Kiev, the separatist pro-Russia rebels they are fighting and the Russia government that Ukraine accuses of supporting the rebels all deny shooting the passenger plane down. Moscow also denies backing the rebels.

On Thursday Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed Ukraine for the crash, saying the government in Kiev was responsible for the unrest in its Russian-speaking eastern regions. But he did not accuse Ukraine of shooting the plane down and did not address the key question of whether Russia gave the rebels such a powerful missile.

The separatists were quoted in Russian media last month saying they had acquired a long-range SA-11 anti-aircraft system.

But the Russian defence ministry said Friday that a Ukrainian radar station for surface-to-air missiles was operating yesterday 30km south of Donetsk on the Thursday. The ministry added that a Buk missile could have been launched from systems stationed in the area.

Russian media reports suggested a missile was fired by Ukraine forces and that the target could have been the private plane carrying Mr. Putin back from a visit to South America.

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry released a video purporting to show a truck carrying the Buk missile launcher it said was used to fire on the plane with one of its four missiles apparently missing. The ministry said the footage was filmed by a police surveillance squad at dawn Friday as the truck was heading to the city of Krasnodon toward the Russian border.

There was no way to independently verify the video.

THE VICTIMS

An official with Malaysia Airlines says at least one Canadian was among the 298 people aboard the plane. There were no survivors.

A spokesman for Lynne Yelich, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, said no further details on the Canadian victim would be released to respect the privacy of the family.

A Malaysia Airlines official said 189 of the passengers were Dutch. There were also 29 Malaysians, 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians, nine from the United Kingdom, four each from Germany and Belgium, three from the Philippines, one each from Canada and New Zealand and four passengers whose nationalities have yet to be confirmed,

In Malaysia, there was a sense of disbelief that another airline disaster could strike so soon. The Netherlands declared a national day of mourning.

In an almost incomprehensible twist of fate, an Australian woman who lost her brother in the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 learned on Friday that her stepdaughter was on the plane shot down over Ukraine.

One woman living in the crash zone told how a corpse smashed though the roof of her house. “There was a howling noise and everything started to rattle. Then objects started falling out of the sky,” said Irina Tipunova, 65. “And then I heard a roar and she landed in the kitchen.”

A DANGEROUS ROUTE?

Despite the long-running conflict in the area, airlines have continued to fly over the region, which lies along the shortest route from major European airports to southeast Asia.

But some leading airlines had begun to avoid the area, Agence Frenace Presse reports, including South Korea’s Korean Air and Asiana, Australia’s Qantas and Taiwan’s China Airlines.

“We stopped flying over Ukraine because of safety concerns,” Asiana spokeswoman Lee Hyo-Min told AFP.

Asked why Malaysia Airlines did not take similar precautions, Malaysia’s Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai noted that international air authorities had deemed the flight path secure.

“The flight path taken by MH17 was approved by the International Civil Aviation Organization, and by the countries whose airspace the route passed through,” AFP quoted the minister telling reporters in Kuala Lumpur.

[American Patriot]

Indiana University student killed aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17

Posted 10:57 am, July 18, 2014, by Scott Wise and CNN Wire, Updated at 10:58am, July 18, 2014

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BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — An Indiana University student was among the people who were killed when Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crashed in eastern Ukraine Thursday. Karlijn Keijzer, 25, was a doctoral student in the chemistry department.

“On behalf of the entire Indiana University community, I want to express my deepest sympathies to Karlijn’s family and friends over her tragic death,” Indiana University President Michael A. McRobbie said in a statement. “Karlijn was an outstanding student and a talented athlete, and her passing is a loss to the campus and the university. Our hearts also go out to the families of all the victims of this senseless act.”
Keijzer also earned her master’s degree from Indiana and was on the school’s women’s rowing team in 2011.

“The Indiana Rowing family is deeply saddened by the news of Karlijn’s sudden passing,” Indiana head rowing coach Steve Peterson said. “She came to us for one year as a graduate student and truly wanted to pursue rowing. That year was the first year we really started to make a mark with the First Varsity 8 boat, and she was a huge reason for it. She was a phenomenal student and loved IU so much that she stayed here after she earned her master’s degree. Our condolences go out to her family and friends in this very tough time.”
U.S. diplomat points finger at pro-Russian rebels over Flight 17
A senior U.S. diplomat pointed the finger Friday at pro-Russian rebels in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in Ukraine, an act that killed 298 people.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council that the plane was “likely downed by a surface-to-air missile … operated from a separatist-held location in eastern Ukraine.”
If pro-Russian separatists are responsible for shooting down the plane with a missile, investigators can’t rule out the possibility that Russia offered help to operate the system, she said.
Power also said Russia should take steps to cool tensions in Ukraine.
“Russia can end this war,” she said. “Russia must end this war.”
The United States and Ukraine are committed to a diplomatic solution to the crisis in eastern Ukraine, she said, but if Russia continues to choose escalation, additional sanctions will follow.
Separatist leaders also boasted on social media about shooting down the plane and later deleted those references, she said.
On board were 298 people, none of whom survived the crash, she said. Three were infants.
A preliminary classified U.S. intelligence analysis has concluded that the missile that hit Flight 17 most likely was fired by pro-Russian separatists inside eastern Ukraine, according to a U.S. defense official with direct access to the latest information.
The official declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the information.
Power had tough words for Russia, saying it had not lived up to its commitments to ease tensions and halt the flow of weapons over the border to the rebels in Ukraine.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk earlier blasted the “terrorists” he blamed for shooting down Flight 17 over Ukraine a day earlier, with 298 people aboard.
He called on all governments to back the investigation and “to support the Ukrainian government to bring to justice all these bastards who committed this international crime.”
Russia, Ukraine trade accusations
Since the Malaysia Airlines jet fell from the sky above eastern Ukraine on Thursday, Russia and Ukraine — which routinely uses the word “terrorists” to describe pro-Russian rebels — have traded blame and accusations.
“Terrorists have killed almost 300 persons with one shot,” Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Thursday. “Among them are women, children, citizens of different countries of the world.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed the finger back at Ukraine, blaming its recent tough military operations against separatists for the volatility in the region.
But Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin rejected that claim, telling CNN it was up to Russia to stop the flow of heavy weaponry across Ukraine’s eastern border and push the separatists to embrace a cease-fire.
He also dismissed any suggestion that Ukrainian forces may have been involved in Thursday’s tragedy.
“There was no way our forces could be engaged in any way in this incident,” Klimkin said, adding that Ukraine did not have any military assets in the area that could have shot down MH17.
Klimkin says Ukraine intercepted telephone calls between “terrorists” at the time the plane was shot down.
Yatsenyuk called for a U.N. Security Council meeting to be held and for all nations to do everything they could to stop what he said was not now just a war in Ukraine or Europe, but a “war against the world.”
Meanwhile, international inspectors headed to the crash site Friday tasked with finding the plane’s flight data recorders, which may lie amid the human remains and debris strewn across fields near the town of Torez.
Ukrainian government officials said 181 bodies had been found.
The latest information from Malaysia Airlines indicates that the Netherlands has suffered the harshest blow, with at least 189 of its citizens among those killed.
Experts have voiced concern that the crash site has not been properly secured, making the recovery of bodies and collection of evidence difficult.
Monitors head to crash site
A group of monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is on its way to the crash site near Torez, in rebel territory in the Donetsk region.
Michael Bociurkiw, who was traveling with about 30 colleagues, told CNN the OSCE had been given assurances by separatist leaders that they would be able to pass through rebel-held checkpoints.
OSCE monitors in eastern Ukraine to observe the civil conflict have previously been taken hostage by separatist groups.
There have been conflicting reports over whether the plane’s data recorders have already been recovered by rescue workers or separatists. Ukrainian officials have suggested separatists may seek to take them to Moscow.
An adviser to Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs Anton Geraschenko was quoted by Ukraine’s Interfax news agency Friday as saying that the missile launcher used to down the Malaysian plane is already in Russia and will be destroyed.
The “Buk” launcher, as well as the flight data recorders from MH17, were handed over to Russian agents across the border at a checkpoint in the Luhansk area overnight, Geraschenko claimed, citing Ukrainian intelligence sources.
Ukraine’s state security chief has also accused two Russian military intelligence officers of involvement in Thursday’s events. Valentyn Nalyvaichenko said he based his allegation on intercepts of phone conversations between Russian officers, saying the conversation implicates the pro-Russian side.
CNN cannot confirm the authenticity of the recording.
Ukrainian officials reported earlier this week that two Ukrainian military aircraft had been shot down in the country’s east. They accused a Russian fighter of shooting down a Ukrainian jet Wednesday and said Russian weapons had been used against an An-26 military transport plane Monday.
In an exclusive interview with the state-run Russia 24 TV channel, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia would “insist on the most objective, most open and independent investigation” into what happened to Flight 17.
“We’re ready to make our own contribution, but certainly we believe the initiative must be undertaken by the authorities of the country on which territory this tragedy occurred,” he said.
“With regard to the claims raised by Kiev, that it was almost us who did it: In fact I haven’t heard any truthful statements from Kiev over the past few months.”

‘Outrage against human decency’
If the pro-Russian separatists did shoot down Flight 17, headed to the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam, the jet’s passengers and crew are innocent casualties in Ukraine’s separatist armed crisis.
The passengers and crew hailed from all over the world, including Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Germany and Canada. No survivors have been found.
Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai offered his condolences Friday to the families affected and said Malaysia would support them. The full passenger list will be released once all the next-of-kin have been contacted, he said.
If reports that the jet was shot down are confirmed, “it would contravene international law and be an outrage against human decency,” the minister said, speaking to reporters in Kuala Lumpur.
He defended the routing of the Malaysia Airlines plane over a conflict area, saying other carriers were sending their aircraft through the same airspace above Ukraine in the hours before MH17 came down.
“Following this incident, Malaysia Airlines now avoids Ukrainian airspace entirely, flying farther south over Turkey,” a statement from the airline said.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure announced Friday that the airspace over Donetsk, Luhansk and part of Kharkiv where separatists are operating had been closed indefinitely.
Three months ago, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration prohibited U.S. airlines from flying in areas some way south of where Flight 17 crashed Thursday.
The Boeing 777 jet had a “clean maintenance record,” and its last maintenance check was on July 11, Malaysia Airlines Regional Senior Vice President Huib Gorter told reporters at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam on Friday. The plane was manufactured in 1997, and it had 17 years of service, he said.
Malaysia’s transport minister said Ukraine would lead the investigation.
Who was on the plane?
The 15 crew members on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 were all Malaysian nationals, officials said.
Malaysia Airlines also gave a breakdown of the known nationalities of the 283 passengers: 189 were Dutch, 29 were Malaysian, 27 were Australian, 12 were Indonesian, nine were from the United Kingdom, four were from Germany, four were from Belgium, three were from the Philippines, one was Canadian and one was from New Zealand.
Authorities were still trying to determine the nationalities of the other four people on board, it said.
The International AIDS Society said in a statement that “a number” of its members were on the plane on the way to a conference in Melbourne, Australia.
“At this incredibly sad and sensitive time, the IAS stands with our international family and sends condolences to the loved ones of those who have been lost to this tragedy,” the statement said.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who knew some of those on board through the work of his foundation, told CNN that news of the crash was “awful.”
‘Blown out of the sky’
Leaders and diplomats from around the world have called for investigators to be given unobstructed access to the disputed region.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said Ukraine’s President had accepted an offer of U.S. experts to help investigate the crash.
The plane was apparently shot down,”not an accident, blown out of the sky,” Biden said Thursday.
“It is critical that there be a full, credible, and unimpeded international investigation as quickly as possible,” the White House said in a statement.
The Obama administration believes Ukraine did not have the capability in the region — let alone the motivation — to shoot down the plane, a U.S. official told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
But the White House placed some blame on Russia and warned that evidence must not be tampered with.
“While we do not yet have all the facts, we do know that this incident occurred in the context of a crisis in Ukraine that is fueled by Russian support for the separatists, including through arms, materiel and training,” it said in a statement.
But defense expert and retired Brig. Gen. Kevin Ryan said Ukraine and Russia both have the missile capability to shoot down such an aircraft at such an altitude.
Russia-Ukraine dispute
Tensions have been high between Ukraine and Russia since street protests forced former pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych from power in February. Russia subsequently annexed Ukraine’s southeastern Crimea region, and a pro-Russian separatist rebellion has been raging in Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
Ukraine’s government has accused Russia of allowing weapons and military equipment, including tanks, to cross the border illegally into the hands of pro-Russian separatists.
Merkel stressed Friday that Russia must do more to ease the crisis in Ukraine.
“Russia is largely responsible for what’s happening in the Ukraine now, and I would make an appeal — that the Russian President and the Russian government should make a contribution so that a political solution can be found,” she said.
European Union leaders agreed this week to expand sanctions against individuals and entities in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine, with details to be decided by the end of the month. Expanded U.S. sanctions were also announced in Washington.
Airline’s troubles
Thursday’s crash marks the second time this year that Malaysia Airlines has faced an incident involving a downed plane.
On March 8, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared with 239 people on board. Searchers have found no trace of the Boeing 777 or its passengers despite extensive search efforts.
Flight 370 probably flew into the southern Indian Ocean on autopilot with an unresponsive crew, Australian authorities said last month.
A new underwater search is expected to begin in August. It will be broadly in an area where planes and vessels had already looked for debris on the surface of the water.

[American Patriot]

UN envoy Power: US can't rule out help from Russian personnel in downing plane in Ukraine

The Associated Press
Fri, 18 Jul 2014 08:58:00 CST
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U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power says the United States cannot rule out help from Russia in the launch of the surface-to-air missile that shot down a Malaysian airlines jet killing all 298 people on board.
Power said the U.S. believes the SA-11 missile was fired from an area controlled by pro-Russian separatists who previously boasted about obtaining such missiles. She said Russia has provided SA-11s and other heavy weapons to the separatists.
"If indeed Russian-backed separatists were behind this attack on a civilian airliner, they and their backers would have good reason to cover up evidence of their crime," Power told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council. "Thus it is extremely important than an investigation be commenced immediately."
The Security Council called for "a full, thorough and independent international investigation."

[American Patriot]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ight-MH17.html

Big article, lotsa images. Go to the link if this doesn't work


Is this the smoking gun? Footage emerges of BUK missile launcher being smuggled back to Russia and missing TWO rockets

• Expert believes that MH17 was downed by a missile fired from rebel-held Torez in eastern Ukraine
• BUK launcher has been pictured rumbling into the town just two hours before the crash
• Ukraine’s security agency, the SBU, has released recordings of intercepted phone calls
• Claim they prove Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by a group of Russian-backed Cossack militants
• Neither recording — which allegedly includes a Russian military intelligence officer — could be independently verified
• Laughing rebels filmed the plane as it crashed, gleefully bragging 'that was a blast – look at the smoke!'
• Hillary Clinton said that there 'should be outrage in European capitals' over the downing of the airliner
• Expert claims that pilot of MH17 'felt uncomfortable' about his route over Ukraine but diverted to hostile airspace
• Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported the crash at 16.13 Moscow time - 'several minutes before the crash'

By James Nye and Sam Greenhill and Ted Thornhill
Published: 22:00 EST, 17 July 2014 | Updated: 09:57 EST, 18 July 2014

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An expert believes that MH17 was downed by a missile fired from rebel-held Torez in eastern Ukraine - and a BUK anti-aircraft launcher has been pictured rumbling into the town just two hours before the crash, leading to speculation that it was this piece of equipment that was used to bring about the tragedy.

On Friday a missile launcher with two rockets missing was then filmed by Ukrainian intelligence services being smuggled on the back of a truck to Russia.
Anton Gerashchenko, from Ukraine's interior ministry, said of the missing missiles that 'it's not hard to guess why'.

Scroll down for video


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Suspicious: Ukrainian spies reportedly filmed the launcher used in the attack being smuggled to Russia - with two missiles missing

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A view of what is believed to be a BUK surface-to-air missile battery being driven along a path on July 17 in Torez, Ukraine

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Launch site? The BUK missile system photographed in Torez hours before MH17 was downed



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Russian air defense missile system BUK M2 seen at a military show at the international forum in Zhukovsky outside Moscow, in 2010


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A map showing the distance between the launch site and the MH17 crash site






Is this SAM, missing 2 missiles, being smuggled out of Ukraine?

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Missile system 'seen in Ukraine' hours before MH17 shot down

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'It was exactly these missiles which brought death to almost 300 innocent passengers of the ill-fated Malaysian Boeing,' he said, according to the Telegraph.
He continued: 'International terrorist Igor Strelkov, aka Girkin, last night visited Snizhne to settle the situation with the downed Malaysian Boeing.

'In the night the Buk system, from which the missile was launched, was removed to Russia, where it is likely to be destroyed.'
He claimed that the 'direct performers of the terrorist attack' are also likely to have been killed to avoid any witnesses.
The rebels 'happily announced that they had downed the Ukrainian AN-26' when in fact they had shot the Boeing, he said.
Dr Igor Sutyagin, Research Fellow in Russian Studies from the Royal United Services Institute, believes that MH17 was shot down by rebels based in the 3rd District of Torez.

Dr Sutyagin said the evidence that Russian separatists were responsible was very strong - and that there's even a suggestion the BUK missile launcher was being manned by soldiers from Russia.


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A pro-Russian militant passes by the wreckage of a Boeing 777, of Malaysia Arilines flight MH17 debris


He said: ‘These separatists boasted on Twitter about capturing an BUK SA11 missile launcher [capable of downing high-flying airliners] on June 29, and several hours before the downing of the plane locals in Torez reported seeing BUK missile launchers and separatist flags around the city.
‘Later, there was lots of video posted of the plane falling down and rebels saying that “it was not pointless moving it [the BUK] there”.'
Dr Sutyagin then underscored the emerging Russian link to the tragedy.
He said: 'The military leader of the Donetsk Republic, Igor Strelkov, real name Girkin, a Muscovite, a Russian citizen, posts a video of the intercept.'
This video was taken down once it was discovered that the downed plane was civilian.
The expert implicated Russia further, revealing that the former commander of Russian Air Force Special Operations Command, a Colonel-General, stated recently in an interview that the separatists did not have the expertise to operate the BUK launchers, that only Russian personnel could do so.
It's also suspicious, Dr Sutyagin said, that Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported the crash at 16.13 Moscow time, several minutes before the crash actually happened - at 16.20.
'The plane is safely in the sky, and RIA Novosti publishes information that it has been shot down,' he said.
Dr Sutyagin also told MailOnline that information had been leaked from a source he was unwilling to name that the pilot of MH17 'felt bad' about his course over Ukranian airspace, so turned south.

More...

• Putin blames Ukraine for loss of Flight MH17 with 295 innocent souls but DOESN'T deny Russian separatists shot it down with missile - as McCain warns there will be 'Hell to pay'
• 'It looks like it may be a terrible tragedy': Obama goes AWOL again with just 40-second mention of Malaysian plane crash feared to have killed Americans before his jokey 16-minute transport speech
• Black box from downed Malaysian Airlines jet is sent to MOSCOW by pro-Russian separatists amid fears of a cover-up
• Fears Americans died in MH71 crash: State department investigates agency report 23 US citizens were aboard flight shot down over Ukraine
• Passenger on doomed flight MH17 'joked about the flight disappearing'. Dutch man posted picture of plane before boarding 'in case it disappeared'

Little did he know, according to Dr Sutyagin, that his plane would then be mistaken by rebels for a Ukrainian government resupply flight.
He said: 'There is a Ukrainian mechanised brigade blocked by separatists near the Russian border. It's blocked on three sides by separatists and behind the brigade is the Russian boarder, so they can't get out. The Ukrainians try to resupply them from the air by transport aircraft.
'Now, the pilot of MH17 said that he "felt bad" and wanted to change course to get out of the danger zone. But several kilometers to the south is a Ukrainian Army heavy transport plane, an IL76, or Candid, which has the same echo as a 777 on a radar screen.
'The two planes came close. They tried to shoot down the transport delivering supplies to the brigade. They believed that they had been firing at a military plane, but they mistakenly shoot down a civilian airliner.'


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Doomed: Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 takes off at 12.31pm from Schiphol airport near Amsterdam on Thursday


Interpol announced today it would fully assist the investigation of the horror.
Separatist rebels who control the crash site issued conflicting reports Friday about whether they had found the plane's black boxes or not.

'No black boxes have been found ... we hope that experts will track them down and create a picture of what has happened,' said Donetsk separatist leader Aleksandr Borodai.

Yet earlier Friday, an aide to the military leader of Borodai's group said authorities had recovered eight out of 12 recording devices.

Since planes usually have two black boxes - one for recording flight data and the other for recording cockpit voices - it was not clear what the number 12 referred to.
Earlier Ukrainian security services claim to have intercepted two phone conversations in which pro-Russian separatists appear to admit to shooting down Flight MH17, railing, 'They shouldn’t be f*****g flying. There is a war going on.'
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) reportedly released recordings of the intercepted phone calls between Russian military intelligence officers and Russian-backed Cossack militants to the Kiev Post.
The phone calls, which could prove damning to Vladimir Putin, are allegedly from minutes after the Boeing 777-200 crashed and were apparently made near the village of Chornukhine, which is 50 miles north-west of Donetsk, near to the border with Russia, where the aircraft came down.
The first phone call was reportedly made at 4.40pm local time, or 20 minutes after the crash.

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Admission of guilt or not? In a recording of an intercept, played to journalists, a Russian (military intelligence officer) called Igor Bezler (left and right) is heard reporting on the downing of the Boeing 777-200 to his superior in Russian military intelligence, Colonel Vasily Geranin (not pictured here)

On the line allegedly is Igor Bezler, who according to the SBU is a Russian military intelligence officer and commander of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic.
He is apparently on the phone to a colonel in the Russian Federation armed forces named Vasili Geranin, explaining that the plane has gone down.
The SBU also released to the Kiev Post another telephone conversation between two militants identified only as 'Major' and 'Grek' who have apparently returned from the crash site.
This phone call takes place 40 minutes after the phone call which allegedly took place between Bezler and Geranin.


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Airliner downed: Assault rifles in hand, four pro-Russian separatists survey the smouldering wreckage of a passenger jet destryoed by a missile in war-torn Ukraine


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'Unspeakable horror': Emergency workers survey the wreckage of flight MH17, which came down in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine
Putin lays blame on Ukrainian government after MH17 tragedy

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A third part of the conversation that involves the 'Major' and 'Grek' seems to bring in Cossack commander Nikolay Kozitsin, who suggests that the Malaysian Airlines plane must have been carrying spies, otherwise it had no business flying in that airspace.
During the phone call between 'Grek' and the 'Major' they exclaim, 'holy s***' when they realize their error in shooting down a passenger jet.
Indeed, Reuters reported that Ukraine's state security chief accused two Russian military intelligence officers of involvement with pro-Russian rebels in the downing of a Malaysian airliner on Thursday, releasing chilling testimony of what he called an 'inhuman crime.'
SBU chief Valentyn Nalivaychenko based his allegation on intercepted telephone conversations between the two officers and pro-Russian fighters, one of whom referred to seeing 'a sea of women and children' in the wreckage of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777.

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Crash site: Rescue workers inspect the wreckage of a Malaysia Airlines passenger plane which was shot down today above Ukraine, killed all 298 people on board




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Crash site: A picture taken this afternoon shows bodies amongst the wreckage of the doomed plane



Smoke and debris believed to be from flight MH17 falling to Earth

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'We will do everything for the Russian military who carried out this crime to be punished,' Nalivaychenko told journalists, who were shown video and audio transcripts of the recordings. 'The terrorists will not go on dancing on corpses.'
In a recording played to journalists of a conversation said to have taken place at 4.33 pm Kiev time, a rebel fighter going by the nom de guerre of 'Major' is heard telling another comrade called 'Grek' that a group of fighters had brought the airliner down.
'The plane broke up in the air, near the Petropavlovskaya mines. The first (casualty) has been found. It was a woman. A civilian,' he says.
At 5.42 pm 'Major' acknowledges the plane was civilian: 'Hell. It's almost 100 percent certain that it's a civilian plane.'

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Destruction: The Boeing 777 aircraft was hit by a sophisticated surface-to-air missile over territory near Donetsk held by pro-Russian rebels who the Ukrainian government says are backed by the Kremlin




+20

Laying the blame: The Ukrainian authorities laid the blame for the attack on the rebels by denying any responsibility for the missile launch, with President Petro Poroshenko called the downing an act of terrorism




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Arrival: The self-proclaimed Prime Minister of the pro-Russian separatist 'Donetsk People's Republic' Alexander Borodai (centre) arrives on the site of the crash

Asked if there were many people on board, he replies in the affirmative with a swearword, adding: 'The bits (of the plane) were falling down in the streets ... There were the bits of couches, chairs, bodies.'
Asked if any weapons were found on board, 'Major' says: 'No - Civilian things, medical things, towels, toilet paper.'
He says ID documents of an Indonesian student had been found.
In another recording of an intercept, played to journalists, a Russian (military intelligence officer) called Igor Bezler is heard reporting on the downing to his superior in Russian military intelligence, Colonel Vasily Geranin.
'A plane has just been shot down. It was the 'Mine-laying' group ... They've gone to search and photograph the plane. It is smoking,' Bezler tells Gernanin at 4.40 p.m.
Asked 'How long ago?' he replies: 'About 30 minutes ago.'
THE FULL TRANSCRIPT OF THE ALLEGED REBEL CONVERSATION THAT COULD PROVE DAMNING TO PUTIN AND RUSSIA

A phone call between rebels where they are heard to say ‘holy s***’ when they realized their error was intercepted by Ukraine’s security services, according to a Ukrainian newspaper.
Militants nicknamed ‘Major’ and ‘Greek’ were recorded speaking as ‘Major’ inspected the crash site and found only ‘civilian items’.
Also on the line were Igor Bezler, who authorities says is a Russian military intelligence officer and leading commander of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, and a colonel in the main intelligence department of the general headquarters of the armed forces of the Russian Federation, Vasili Geranin.
The unverified transcript was posted online by the Kiev Post newspaper:
Igor Bezler: We have just shot down a plane. Group Minera. It fell down beyond Yenakievo (Donetsk Oblast).
Vasili Geranin: Pilots. Where are the pilots?
IB: Gone to search for and photograph the plane. Its smoking.
VG: How many minutes ago?
IB: About 30 minutes ago.






Allegations: This is a grab from the video provided to the Kiev Post. Pictured are Igor Bezler and Vasili Geranin. While (right) are likenesses of 'Major' and 'Grek'


SBU comment: After examining the site of the plane the terrorists come to the conclusion that they have shot down a civilian plane. The next part of the conversation took place about 40 minutes later.
'Major': These are Chernukhin folks who shot down the plane. From the Chernukhin check point. Those cossacks who are based in Chernukhino.
'Grek': Yes, Major.
'Major': The plane fell apart in the air. In the area of Petropavlovskaya mine. The first '200'. We have found the first '200' - which is code for a civilian.
'Grek': Well, what do you have there?
'Major': In short, it was 100 percent a passenger (civilian) aircraft.
'Grek': Are many people there?
'Major': Holy sh__t! The debris fell right into the yards (of homes).
'Grek': What kind of aircraft?







Official: A third part of the conversation that involves the 'Major' and 'Greek' seems to bring in Cossack commander Nikolay Kozitsin, who suggests that the Malaysian Airlines plane must have been carrying spies




'Major': I haven’t ascertained this. I haven’t been to the main sight. I am only surveying the scene where the first bodies fell. There are the remains of internal brackets, seats and bodies.
'Grek': Is there anything left of the weapon?
'Major': Absolutely nothing. Civilian items, medicinal stuff, towels, toilet paper.
'Grek': Are there documents?
'Major': Yes, of one Indonesian student. From a university in Thompson.
Militant: Regarding the plane shot down in the area of Snizhne-Torez. It’s a civilian one. Fell down near Grabove. There are lots of corpses of women and children. The Cossacks are out there looking at all this.
They say on TV it’s AN-26 transport plane, but they say it’s written Malaysia Airlines on the plane. What was it doing on Ukraine’s territory?
Nikolay Kozitsin: That means they were carrying spies. They shouldn’t be f…cking flying. There is a war going on.


Pro-Russian rebels 'discuss downing of Malaysian jet'

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DID PILOT OF MH17 DIVERT INTO HOSTILE TERRITORY?

The pilot of MH17 radioed that he 'felt uncomfortable' about the route he was flying while over Ukraine and tragically altered his course to hostile territory, where Russian separatist missile operators mistook his plane for a government military transport aircraft, according to an expert.
Dr Igor Sutyagin, Research Fellow in Russian Studies from the Royal United Services Institute, believes that MH17 was shot down by rebels based in the 3rd District of Torez, in eastern Ukraine, using a ground-to-air SA11 missile system .
He told MailOnline that information had been leaked from a source he was unwilling to name that the pilot of MH17 'felt bad' about his course over Ukrainian airspace, so turned south.
Little did he know, according to Dr Sutyagin, that his plane would then be mistaken by rebels for a Ukrainian government resupply flight.
He said: 'There is a Ukrainian mechanised brigade blocked by separatists near the Russian boarder. It's blocked on three sides by separatists and behind the brigade is the Russian boarder, so they can't get out. The Ukrainians try to resupply them from the air by transport aircraft.
'Now, the pilot of MH17 said that he "felt bad" and wanted to change course to get out of the danger zone. But several kilometers to the south is a Ukrainian Army heavy transport plane, an IL76, or Candid, which has the same echo as a 777 on a radar screen.
'The two planes came close. They tried to shoot down the transport delivering supplies to the brigade. They believed that they had been firing at a military plane, but they mistakenly shoot down a civilian airliner.'


In a third conversation, a rebel fighter says: 'It turned out to be a passenger plane. It fell in Hrabove area. There's a sea of women and children ...'
He adds: 'But what was it (the Malaysian airlines flight) doing over Ukraine?'
The man he is talking to replies: 'That means they've called up spies. No way to flights. This is war.'
'Okay, understood,' he replies.
'They discuss Russian saboteurs bringing down a passenger plane. They discuss the number of victims. We have fixed this conversation as taking place at 4.20. Now you know who carried out this inhuman crime against humanity,' Nalivaychenko said.
'We will open up to all possible channels, the means of this crime being objectively investigated, and the officers of the Russian Federation who carried out this crime being punished.'
Russia's Interfax news agency quoted Donetsk rebel spokesman Sergey Kavtaradze as denying that the intercepted phone conversations were genuine.
Yesterday it emerged that rebels laughed as they filmed the plane crashing, gleefully bragging ‘that was a blast – look at the smoke!’ while a fireball rose from the debris.
One of the voices is believed to be Strelkov, who then penned a triumphant war cry on Twitter, saying: ‘We warned you – do not fly in 'our sky'.’
A sickening mobile phone video posted online shows a pall of black smoke billowing over the crash site as three rebels provide an excited commentary.
The extraordinary footage – apparently filmed by the shooters themselves – charts the terrible final moments of the doomed airliner.
Their camera does not zoom in enough to see the plummeting plane in the sky, but the rebels’ voices can be heard talking happily of ‘black spots – these are the parts flying’, suggesting it fell to earth in several pieces.
A voice believed to be that of Strelkov – dubbed ‘Igor the Terrible’ – announces: ‘The plane was hit!’ He adds: ‘Look at those black spots, these are the parts, flying … it was a blast … look, look, black smoke!’
Another rebel, possibly referring to the missile system, laughs and says: ‘It was worth bringing this thing, wasn't it?’
None of the rebels can be seen in their horrific film, but it appears to be genuine because at the time only they seemed to know what was happening. Ordinary life carries on in the village where they are standing. A bus trundles by and an unsuspecting villager is seen wandering past the camera.
Shortly after the passenger plane was downed, Strelkov – seen smirking in propaganda photos – tweeted a boastful message claiming responsibility.
At the time, he apparently believed he had shot down an Antonov-26 military plane of the Ukrainian Air Force, saying it landed near a mine named Progress.
His chilling message read: ‘In the area Torez we just hit down An-26, it’s lying somewhere in the mine 'Progress'.
‘We warned you – do not fly in 'our sky'. And here is the video confirmation of the 'bird dropping'.
‘Bird fell near the mine, the residential sector was not disturbed. Civilians are not injured.’
Later as the horror became clear, the tweet was deleted.


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Boast: Ukraine separatist Igor Strelkov said on Twitter ‘We warned you – do not fly in 'our sky'. And here is the video confirmation of the 'bird dropping'

Former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said European leaders should put more pressure on Mr Putin if Russia was involved in the incident.
She told PBS's Charlie Rose there should be 'outrage in European capitals' over Russian aggression in the region but ultimately it was up to Europe to take the lead.
She said: 'The questions I'd be asking is, number one, who could have shot it down? Who had the equipment? It's obviously an anti-aircraft missile. Who could have had the expertise to do that? Because commercial airlines are big targets, but by the time they got over that part of Ukraine they should have been high, so it takes some planning.
'And the Ukrainian government has been quick to blame it on terrorists, which is their name for the Russian insurgents. And there does seem to be some growing awareness that it probably had to be Russian insurgents.
'Now, how we determine that will require some forensics, but then if there is evidence pointing in that direction, the equipment had to have come from Russia. What more the Russians may or may not have done, we don't know.
'Europeans have to be the ones to take the lead on this. It was a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur over European territory. There should be outrage in European capitals.'
Mrs Clinton endorsed stepped-up US sanctions against Russia but said they would not 'necessarily restrain' Mr Putin or change his calculations.

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Struggle: A firefighter sprays water on the flames in an attempt to extinguish the fire




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Fighting the fire: Airline fuel continues to burn amongst the wreckage as night falls over the crash site


Read more:

• http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukra...pt-356545.html
• Malaysia Airlines plane crashes on Ukraine-Russia border - live - Telegraph

[American Patriot]

Yeah, we can see 'em.

Sophisticated American satellites tracked missile that took down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine: report

A U.S. satellite over Ukraine picked up on the heat of the missile, experts said. Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for launching the Soviet-era Buk, which crashed the plane and killed all 298 people on board.

BY Meg Wagner
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Friday, July 18, 2014, 9:33 AM

Ivan Sekretarev/ASSOCIATED PRESS Both Russia Ukraine said a Buk missile, like the one displayed here, took down the Malaysia Airlines plane after a U.S. spy satellite confirmed a rocket struck the commercial jet.

American spying satellites could help solve the mystery of what — and who — shot down Malaysia Airlines flight 17.
The plane crashed in war-torn Eastern Ukraine Thursday, killing all of the 298 people on board. Reports quickly blamed the disaster on a missile launch, and a high-tech, infrared U.S. satellite confirmed the news, and missile analysts told the Los Angeles Times.
Fleets of the spying satellites, called measurement and signature intelligence, or MASINT, orbit the Earth to track electronic signals. That means they picked up the heat of the missile launch when it shot 33,000 feet up and struck the Boeing 777.
"They would have known exactly where it was launched, where it was headed, and the rate at which it was traveling," Riki Ellison, founder of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, told the Los Angeles Times.
The U.S. also operates the Space Based Infrared (SBIR) satellite system, which picks up on missiles plumes with ultra-sophisticated sensors. The technology is so sensitive it can pick up on small arms fire, NBC News explained.

STRINGER/POLAND/Reuters Enlarge

MAXIM ZMEYEV/REUTERS Enlarge

The crash killed all 298 passengers on board.


Those satellites might help determine what kind of missile brought down the plane.
Both Russia and the Ukraine said a Soviet-era Buk missile struck the plane, Reuters reported. The current debate is who launched it: Each party has blamed the other.
Russia, Ukraine and Russian rebels in Ukraine all say they own a Buk missile.

[Ryan Ruck]

Obama has to meet Reagan standards on this.....

[Ryan Ruck]

By the way, does FNC realize that they are showing video footage of the crash site with, what looks like to me, mangled bodies and body parts pretty clearly visible?

It doesn't make me squeamish but that doesn't seem like something they'd normally do lest the outragers be outraged.

[American Patriot]

UPDATE: US: Can’t rule out Russian role in plane downing


Dmitry Lovetsky

Ukrainian coal miners search the site of a crashed Malaysia Airlines passenger plane near the village of Rozsypne, Ukraine, eastern Ukraine, today. Rescue workers, policemen and off-duty coal miners were combing a sprawling area in eastern Ukraine near the Russian border where the Malaysian plane ended up in burning pieces Thursday, killing all 298 aboard.


Posted: Friday, July 18, 2014 10:15 am | Updated: 10:17 am, Fri Jul 18, 2014.

Associated Press |

UPDATE

UNITED NATIONS — U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said today the United States cannot rule out help from Russia in the launch of the surface-to-air missile that shot down a Malaysian airlines jet killing all 298 people on board.

Power said the U.S. believes the SA-11 missile was fired from an area controlled by pro-Russian separatists who previously boasted about obtaining such missiles. She said Russia has provided SA-11s and other heavy weapons to the separatists.

“If indeed Russian-backed separatists were behind this attack on a civilian airliner, they and their backers would have good reason to cover up evidence of their crime,” Power told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council. “Thus it is extremely important than an investigation be commenced immediately.”

The Security Council approved a statement calling for “a full, thorough and independent international investigation.”

The press statement expresses the council’s “deepest sympathies and condolences to the families of the victims, and to the people and governments of all those killed in the crash.”

Council members stood in a moment of silent tribute to the 298 victims at the start of the emergency council meeting, called by Jordan.

The council called for an investigation “in accordance with international civil aviation guidelines and for appropriate accountability.” It stressed the need for “immediate access by investigators to the crash site to determine the cause of the incident.”

The jetliner was shot down Thursday as it flew high above separatist-held territory.

ORIGINAL STORY

ROZSYPNE, Ukraine — Emergency workers, police officers and even off-duty coal miners spread out today across the sunflower fields and villages of eastern Ukraine, searching the wreckage of a jetliner shot down as it flew miles above the country’s battlefield.

The attack Thursday afternoon killed 298 people from nearly a dozen nations — including vacationers, students and a large contingent of scientists heading to an AIDS conference in Australia.

U.S. intelligence authorities said a surface-to-air missile brought down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 as it flew from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, but could not say who fired it. The Ukraine government in Kiev, the separatist pro-Russia rebels they are fighting and the Russia government that Ukraine accuses of supporting the rebels all deny shooting the passenger plane down. Moscow also denies backing the rebels.

Russian President Vladimir Putin called for a cease-fire Friday in eastern Ukraine and urged the two sides to hold peace talks as soon as possible. A day earlier, Putin had blamed Ukraine for the crash, saying the government in Kiev was responsible for the unrest in its Russian-speaking eastern regions. But he did not accuse Ukraine of shooting the plane down and did not address the key question of whether Russia gave the rebels such a powerful missile.

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry released a video purporting to show a truck carrying the Buk missile launcher it said was used to fire on the plane with one of its four missiles apparently missing. The ministry said the footage was filmed by a police surveillance squad at dawn Friday as the truck was heading to the city of Krasnodon toward the Russian border.

There was no way to independently verify the video.

Ukraine has called for an international probe to determine who attacked the plane and the Unites States has offered to help. But access to the sprawling crash site remained difficult and dangerous. The road from Donetsk, the largest city in the region, to the crash site was marked by five rebel checkpoints Friday, with document checks at each.

By midday, 181 bodies had been located, according to emergency workers in contact with officials in Kiev. Malaysia Airlines said the passengers included 189 Dutch, 29 Malaysians, 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians, nine Britons, four Germans, four Belgians, three Filipinos and one person each from Canada and New Zealand.

Still Nataliya Bystro, a spokeswoman for Ukraine’s emergency services, said rebel militiamen were interfering with the recovery operation.

Separatist rebels who control the crash site issued conflicting reports Friday about whether they had found the plane’s black boxes or not.

“No black boxes have been found ... we hope that experts will track them down and create a picture of what has happened,” said Donetsk separatist leader Aleksandr Borodai.

Yet earlier Friday, an aide to the military leader of Borodai’s group said authorities had recovered eight out of 12 recording devices.

Since planes usually have two black boxes — one for recording flight data and the other for recording cockpit voices — it was not clear what the number 12 referred to.

Borodai said 17 representatives from the Organization for Security and Cooperation and four Ukrainian experts had traveled into rebel-controlled areas to begin an investigation into the attack.

Ukraine’s state aviation service closed the airspace Friday over two border regions gripped by separatist fighting — Donetsk and Luhansk — and Russian airlines suspended all flights over Ukraine.

An angry Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott demanded an independent inquiry into the downing.

“The initial response of the Russian ambassador was to blame Ukraine for this and I have to say that is deeply, deeply unsatisfactory,” he said. “It’s very important that we don’t allow Russia to prevent an absolutely comprehensive investigation so that we can find out exactly what happened here.”

“This is not an accident, it’s a crime,” he added.

For his part, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed Kiev’s accusations that Moscow could be behind the attack.

“Regarding those claims from Kiev that we allegedly did it ourselves: I have not heard a truthful statement from Kiev for months,” he told the Rossiya 24 television channel.

He also said Russia has no intention of getting ahold of the plane’s black boxes and added that they should be given to international aviation organizations.

The crash site was spread out over fields between two villages in eastern Ukraine — Rozsypne and Hrabove — and fighting apparently still continued nearby. In the distance, the thud of Grad missile launchers being fired could be heard Friday morning.

In the sunflower fields around Rozsypne, 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Russian border, lines of men disappeared into the thick, tall growth that was over their heads. One fainted after finding a body. Another body was covered in a coat.

In Hrabove, several miles away, huge numbers of simple sticks, some made from tree branches, were affixed with red or white rags to mark spots where body parts were found.

Ukraine Foreign Ministry representative Andriy Sybiga said the bodies will be taken to Kharkiv, a government-controlled city 270 kilometers (170 miles) to the north, for identification.

Among the debris were watches and smashed mobile phones, charred boarding passes and passports. An “I (heart) Amsterdam” T-shirt and a guidebook to Bali hinted at holiday plans.

Large chunks of the Boeing 777 that bore the airline’s red, white and blue markings lay strewn over one field. The cockpit and one turbine lay a kilometer (a half-mile) apart, and the tail landed 10 kilometers (six miles) away. One rebel militiaman in Rozsypne told The Associated Press that the plane’s fuselage showed signs of being struck by a projectile.

The area has seen heavy fighting between government troops and pro-Russia separatists, and rebels had bragged about shooting down two Ukrainian military jets in the region Wednesday.

Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said the plane was flying at about 10,000 meters (33,000 feet) when it was hit by a missile from a Buk launcher, which can fire up to an altitude of 22,000 meters (72,000 feet). Malaysia’s prime minister said there was no distress call before the plane went down.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk described the attack as an “international crime” whose perpetrators would have to be punished in an international tribunal.

“Yesterday’s terrible tragedy will change our lives. The Russians have done it now,” he was cited as saying by the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.

Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lay repeatedly insisted that the airline’s path was an internationally approved route and denied accusations that Malaysia Airlines was trying to save fuel and money by taking a more direct flight path across Ukraine.

“I want to stress that this route is an approved path that is used by many airlines including 15 Asia-Pacific airlines. We have not been informed that the path cannot be used,” he said.

Aviation authorities in several countries, including the FAA in the United States, had issued previous warnings not to fly over parts of Ukraine after Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in March. Within hours of the crash Thursday, several airlines announced they were avoiding parts of Ukrainian airspace.

Passengers on the plane included a large contingent of world-renowned AIDS researchers and activists headed to an international AIDS conference in Melbourne, Australia. News of their deaths sparked an outpouring of grief across the global scientific community.

In the Netherlands, flags were flying at half-staff across the country as residents mourned the victims.

At the Tour de France cycling race, all riders observed a minute of silence for the victims before the start of the day’s stage in Saint-Etienne. The Dutch team Belkin wore black armbands.

Several relatives of victims met with counselors at Kuala Lumpur’s international airport. A distraught Akmar Mohamad Noor, 67, said her older sister was coming to visit for the first time in five years.

“She called me just before she boarded the plane and said, ‘See you soon,’” Akmar said.

[American Patriot]

Just in.


Malaysian plane crash: Putin calls for ceasefire in Ukraine
AP Moscow, July 18, 2014 | UPDATED 20:58 IST


Russian President Vladimir Putin called for a cease-fire Friday in eastern Ukraine and urged the two sides to hold peace talks as soon as possible.

A day earlier, Putin had blamed Ukraine for the crash, saying the government in Kiev was responsible for the unrest in its Russian-speaking eastern regions. But he did not accuse Ukraine of shooting the plane down and did not address the key question of whether Russia gave the rebels such a powerful missile.

Emergency workers, police officers and even off-duty coal miners spread out Friday across the sunflower fields and villages of eastern Ukraine, searching the wreckage of a jetliner shot down as it flew miles above the country's battlefield.

The attack Thursday afternoon killed 298 people from nearly a dozen nations - including vacationers, students and a large contingent of scientists heading to an AIDS conference in Australia.

U.S. intelligence authorities said a surface-to-air missile brought down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 as it flew from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, but could not say who fired it. The Ukraine government in Kiev, the separatist pro-Russia rebels they are fighting and the Russia government that Ukraine accuses of supporting the rebels all deny shooting the passenger plane down. Moscow also denies backing the rebels.

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry released a video purporting to show a truck carrying the Buk missile launcher it said was used to fire on the plane with one of its four missiles apparently missing. The ministry said the footage was filmed by a police surveillance squad at dawn Friday as the truck was heading to the city of Krasnodon toward the Russian border.

There was no way to independently verify the video.

Ukraine has called for an international probe to determine who attacked the plane and the Unites States has offered to help. But access to the sprawling crash site remained difficult and dangerous. The road from Donetsk, the largest city in the region, to the crash site was marked by five rebel checkpoints Friday, with document checks at each.

By midday, 181 bodies had been located, according to emergency workers in contact with officials in Kiev. Malaysia Airlines said the passengers included 189 Dutch, 29 Malaysians, 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians, nine Britons, four Germans, four Belgians, three Filipinos and one person each from Canada and New Zealand.

[American Patriot]

By midday, 181 bodies had been located, according to emergency workers in contact with officials in Kiev. Malaysia Airlines said the passengers included 189 Dutch, 29 Malaysians, 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians, nine Britons, four Germans, four Belgians, three Filipinos and one person each from Canada and New Zealand.

[American Patriot]

EU Divisions on Russia Sanctions Fester After Plane Downing

By James G. Neuger Jul 18, 2014 9:30 AM MT

European Union divisions over tougher sanctions on Russia were laid bare by the shooting down of a passenger plane over rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine.


As Germany sought an impartial probe of the downing of the Malaysian jet, Poland demanded a harder line on the Kremlin while Italy signaled no shift from its opposition to more biting sanctions. EU officials gave priority to enacting penalties that were sketched out at a summit this week before the crash.


German Chancellor Angela Merkel straddled the European divide, telling reporters in Berlin that the region’s response so far is “adequate” and “it is especially Russia’s responsibility for what is going on in Ukraine right now.”


EU governments avoided a rush to judgment in the hours after the killing of 298 passengers and crew, the bulk with European passports, in an incident that hurtled the Ukraine crisis into a potentially cataclysmic new phase.


A key figure in shaping Europe’s response is Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency. Renzi has been loathe to alienate Russia, Italy’s biggest supplier of natural gas. EU sanctions require all 28 member countries to agree.
‘Political Guts’

Renzi “has been among the most resistant to sanctions, so he’s got to show political guts,” said Michael Emerson, a former EU envoy to Russia who is now with the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels. He said proof that a rebel missile struck the plane would have to prompt the EU “to get into the sanctions business more seriously.”


So far, the EU has imposed asset freezes and travel bans on 72 people accused of destabilizing Ukraine and engineering Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Two companies in Crimea were also banned from business with the EU.


At their summit, EU leaders announced an intention to go further, by targeting businesspeople close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and making it possible to blacklist Russian companies profiting from the rebellion in eastern Ukraine. They also agreed to cut off credits for Russian infrastructure projects.


Foreign ministers meet July 22 to work on those measures, with a first set of names due by the end of the month. It will take longer to flesh out the list because national governments differ over who to put on it and have been slow to provide intelligence, EU officials told reporters in Brussels.
‘Common Voice’

Poland is spearheading calls for a more aggressive response, with Prime Minister Donald Tusk floating the possibility of an emergency EU summit. The next scheduled summit is on Aug. 30.


“It’s very important that the result of this tragedy should be unmitigated, tough and consistent pressure on the separatists and Russia to stop these actions,” Tusk told reporters in Warsaw today.


Inner-EU tensions over Russia spilled into discussions this week over top appointments for the bloc’s next five-year legislative term. Poland and the Baltic republics balked at naming Italian Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini as EU foreign policy chief, saying she would be too accommodating toward the Kremlin.


“Poland’s goal now is to try and make sure that the EU approach is more assertive,” said Pawel Swieboda, head of the Warsaw-based Center for European Strategy. “But the EU will always remain one step behind the U.S. in that regard -- that’s just the way the bloc operates.”
Clinton Criticism

The U.S., geographically and economically further from Russia, has already gone after Kremlin-backed companies and banks. President Barack Obama this week outlawed business with companies including OAO Rosneft, Russia’s largest oil producer. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joined in the American criticism of the EU for not facing up to the adversary on its borders.


“Europeans have to be the ones to take the lead on this” if it turns out that Russia was behind the plane attack, Clinton said in an interview with Charlie Rose that aired last night on PBS and on Bloomberg Television. “There should be outrage in European capitals.”


To contact the reporter on this story: James G. Neuger in Brussels at jneuger@bloomberg.net



To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alan Crawford at acrawford6@bloomberg.net Leon Mangasarian

[Ryan Ruck]

LMFAO!

Per Zero, NTSB available to send over as though we need to determine how the jet crashed.

News Flash!

It was shot down!

I can see sending the FBI as they may be able to better determine some specifics on the shootdown but even then, the CIA is probably a better option.

[American Patriot]

Obama just verified one American aboard that plane.

Plane is shot down by the Separatists.

Not first time - 3 other aircraft before this.

Steady flow of support from Russia, including training, support, equipment, and heavy weapons.

Must be credible international investigation.

Immediate ceasefire.

No tampering with evidence.

Recovery of bodies.

US standing by with all support, including FBI, NTSB etc

Obama talking to leaders around the world.

Fact finding.

Will likely be "misinformation". (Ass covering there).

blathering now.... this and that... should have shut the fuck up when he made a firm statement....

He has spoken to Putin.....

(Probably trying to get their story together so they both look like leaders)

I figure this is all a conspiracy to make Obama look "strong" again.....

[American Patriot]

NTSB is certainly trained to make a determination about what happened (and verify what we're pretty sure we know).

FBI? FOr what? They are useless.

CIA? No training in downed aircraft. They haven't a clue. Now, they can probably bring in a team to determine the types of explosives used in the warhead..... other than that, they can do as well as I can..."Yep, that's a body, it fell down here... probably out of an airplane of some kind".