Malaysian flight MH17 / Ukraine conflict 2014

started a new thread for this to continue discussion from Malaysia Airlines MH370

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/07/russia-caught-editing-wikipedia-entry-about-downed-malaysian-airliner/

The edit was in response to an initial edit to the MH17 section that said the plane was shot down "by terrorists of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic with Buk system missiles, which the terrorists received from the Russian Federation," according to the website Global Voices.

In a counter-edit less than an hour later, the entry was changed to say, "The plane was shot down by Ukrainian soldiers."

The nerve of this guy:

Borodai said he was expecting a team of 12 Malaysian experts and that he was disappointed at how long they had taken to arrive.

He insisted that rebels had not interfered with the crash investigation, despite reports to the contrary by international monitors and journalists at the crash site.

http://www.nst.com.my/node/15446

https://www.facebook.com/najibrazak/posts/10152172545680952?fref=nf

Positive news for once, as announced by the Malaysian PM about 20 mins ago. Mainly:

1. The remains of 282 people, currently in Torez, will be moved by train to Kharkiv, where they will be handed over to representatives from the Netherlands. The remains will then be flown to Amsterdam.
2. Secondly, at approximately 9pm tonight Ukraine time, the two black boxes will be handed over to a Malaysian team in Donetsk, who will take custody of them.
3. Thirdly, independent international investigators will be guaranteed safe access to the crash site to begin a full investigation of the incident.

3. Thirdly, independent international investigators will be guaranteed safe access to the crash site to begin a full investigation of the incident.

I guess the rebels are fairly confident they've collected the most significant rocket pieces.

i heard that there were over 100 AIDS scientists headed to an important conference on this plane...

Nope

http://gawker.com/aids-researchers-aboard-mh17-memorialized-at-internatio-1607951208

hey cut me some slack i was only off by 94

A lot of people were. There's a la times article from 2 days ago that quotes Obama citing around 100 AIDS researchers perished

Just watching a convoy of 40 hearses on the Dutch motorway, on TV. This is so damn wrong. The Dutch people are doing this extremely serenely, much respect.

You can just tell British journalists are bristling with indignation at the relative reserve and dignity of the Dutch, they want some sort of post-Princess Diana national meltdown.

(...though, having said that, calling the likes of Kay Burley a journalist is stretching it)

There was a Sky presenter filmed rifling through the bags of the victims before the crash investigation team reached the site.

If anything I'm kind of shocked at how chill the world is (relatively speaking) that Russia armed and abetted a rebel group that, whoops, shot down a fucking packed passenger plane. That's far beyond "civilian casualties." There was a time when this would be dominating the global discussion. Doesn't seem to be the case.

A Dutch reporter read a fragment from a child's diary she found on the crash scene as well. She only tried to show how these victims are like all of us - apologies soon followed after social media reacted furiously.

Idk if the world is "chill" but the news agenda has been divided between this and Palestine and there isn't an obvious course of action that anyone can point to.

The west doesn't want to be held responsible for what happens with the weapons we sell either. Xposts

Meanwhile, this convoy is so incredibly long already, yet this is only a fifth of them.

honestly here in KL, people seem to not to care too much about who shot the plane down, just relieved that we at least know where the plane was and that we managed to retrieve the remains of the crash victims.

it's a rubbish thing to say really but it seems like the country is emotionally exhausted and no longer has the resources to grieve.

Hmmm.

http://i.imgur.com/rZtNMpy.jpg

I'm kind of shocked at how chill the world is

Commercial flights near contested airspace or military exercises are fraught.

Iran Air Flight 655
Korean Air Lines Flight 007
Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114
Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870
Transair Georgia (85163)
Aeroflot Flight 902
Siberia Airlines Flight 1812
El Al Israel Airlines Flight 402/26

The most interesting question for me is why the U.S. FAA or U.N. ICAO failed to warn airlines about eastern Ukraine during a week when two Ukrainian military transport planes were shot down from high altitude.

The separatists may have had access to these surface-to-air missiles from within Ukraine's borders. The Buk-M1 was the standard medium SAM in the Ukrainian military in the 2000s and likely still was when chaos erupted in late February.

A more interesting question to me is whether Russia gave them the missiles, helped to train them to use them, or even operated them. Was that the first week when the rebels started shooting down high-altitude planes? I guess the wheels of bureaucracy may turn a bit too slowly when facts on the ground are changing quickly - such as a ragtag guerrilla force suddenly acquiring very advanced anti-aircraft equipment and proficiency.

It's plausible that Russia trained the separatists to use the equipment but it's worth remembering that they were known to have this exact system, captured from a Ukrainian air base, three weeks ago. Also worth remembering that, although they don't come across as particularly professional most of the time, a very high percentage of the separatist fighters are ex Russian, ex Ukrainian or ex Soviet army. Russia has been using Buks since Afghanistan, iirc, so it's entirely possible that there would already have been a certain amount of expertise there.

I've no doubt that Moscow would have felt morally justified in training them if that is what happened though.

If Moscow did train them I wonder if it felt any responsibility to notify international flight control authorities of the new dangers posed by this training to flights in the area.

there was talk that the separatist claims of having captured missile systems from air bases could just be a cover story for having received them from Russia (Ukraine denied losing any/all are accounted for but they would say that right)

I think there was a general acceptance that two were taken but both the separatists and the government have said that they were not functional. Obviously they both have a strong incentive to lie, though.

Just by chance I picked up (again, started last year) Curzio Malaparte's Kaputt this week, an amazing novel - its been odd reading the scenes set in the Ukraine, in its sunflower fields..

So only two were taken? But the separatists has shot down more than two planes.

Such a system contains more than one missile.

Another plane missing today, this time from Burkina Faso. 116 on board.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-28465010

Dutch TV will be showing the arrival of today's flights (74 coffins) live - tomorrow's flights will be transmitted as well. Arrival, ceremony, convoy. Respect, again.

xpost: had changed course because of bad weather, crashed in Mali, apparently

Mali is pretty underrated as far as war/conflict zones go

Dutch TV has started broadcasting news and updates after all, since the loading of the 74 hearses and the ceremony were going to last for another couple of hours. The convoy is still about two hours away from leaving the base now.

(Two hours away from *arriving* at the base)

Bit OT, but these articles were fascinating (particularly for anyone with a background in DCS-like sims).
Don’t Think Russian Rebels Can Learn How to Fire an Anti-Air Missile? Try This Simulator
Realistic to the switch: An interview with SAM Simulator’s Hpasp

There's a number of demonstrations of SAM Simulator on YouTube for those curious about what kind of blips were visible to the separatist SAM operators.

thanks for the links - i'm very interested in intersection between ludic/simulations + war and this seems like a wrinkle on it, kinda on the opposite end of the spectrum from war games which are meant to simulate tactics + maybe ideology as opposed to technical expertise

https://twitter.com/SeppBlatter/statuses/492610417655836672

Sepp Blatter offers his condolences for the plane crash in Mali.

Nothing about MH17, how odd. People wonder if Russia 2018 (football world championship) has anything to do with it.

Idk, if Putin can offer condolences I don't see why Blatter would feel restricted.

People wonder if Russia 2018 (football world championship) has anything to do with it.

Why are they wondering? It's fucking Blatter, of course it's about the 2018 World Cup.

xp
Cause Blatter is even eviler than Putin and besides that, he isn't under any pressure to at least appear sympathetic. Wouldn't surprise me if he thought better of chiming in on MH17 even if the discrepancy isn't all that conspicuous either way.

From a reporter friend in Ukraine:

https://scontent-a-kul.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/q74/s720x720/1604950_10152577767767235_8944509303155521237_n.jpg?oh=15bd9f1e0cdd0527a27bae0b7d62f2ca&oe=544E6793

Posted on the door of the Donetsk People's Republic press center. Where foreign reporters go to get their accreditation done.

#mygeneration

The Dutch / Australian investigation team has been forced to postpone their initial visit to the crash site because of fighting. Ukraine had declared a 40km ceasefire zone around the site but appear to have decided cutting Donetsk off from the Russian border is more of a priority at the moment. There have been reports from Western journalists of shelling / Grad missile attacks on residential areas and dozens of civilian casualties. This could go on for a while.

The Dutch Justice Ministry said the team was unable to leave the city of Donetsk because "there is too much fighting at the moment on and near the route to the disaster site."

Also from CNN

But those sanctions have so far failed to stem the flow of weapons or the fighting, which appeared to enter a dangerous new phase Tuesday on reports that Ukraine's government had used short-range ballistic missiles against the rebels, according to three U.S. officials.

The weapons have a range of about 50 miles (80 kilometers) and pack up to 1,000-pound (454-kilogram) warheads. If the reports are accurate, they are the most deadly missiles to date used in the conflict.

The officials did not specify exactly where the missiles hit or what damage they caused.

One U.S. official said so far, there has been no reaction from Russia. A second official said it is not clear if the United States will show satellite imagery of the Ukrainian firings "because these are the good guys."

Whether it was ballistic missiles or conventional shelling, the Ukrainians managed to bomb a geriatric home this morning.

The separatists seem to have stepped up kidnappings.

Have to sleep in a few minutes, just wanted to note that the remains of the Malaysian victims are finally arriving home in a few hours.

we won't be able to top the stoic dignity and elegance of the Dutch ceremony, but I do sure hope we try.

Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 crashed as a result of a Russian-made 9M38 Buk missile, the Dutch Safety Board says.

this is weirdly moving

https://instagram.com/p/8x2ciYiFvb/

how is there not more international blowback from this

I think there will be but it'll take time, it's a complicated situation. The route the Netherlands is going down is probably the correct one - supporting the families in taking legal action against Russia. Although it's assumed that the rebels shot the plane down with a BUK mistaking it for Ukrainian military transport, there's no point in suing them directly. They'll need to show that they got the missiles from Russia, which isn't 100% straightforward. Both armies use them and the rebels captured quite a lot of Ukrainian hardware when they took over Donbass.

Diplomatically, it's not a great time for governments to make a big thing of it - the situation has settled down and the US and EU are pressuring both sides into a negotiated settlement with regional autonomy and elections. Novorossiya flags are coming down and a lot of the people who were nominally in charge of the rebel militias have left and are doing other things. The likes of Strelkov are probably beyond the reach of international justice:

http://i.imgur.com/nHxBtU0.jpg?1

There's also an interesting precedent to be considered in how far a country is directly responsible for the weapons it gives to non-state actors. If Russia is liable for the actions of militias it supports, the US and UK are responsible for the dubious people it provides assistance to in Syria, etc. Legally, it's correct but it's not necessarily something people are going to want to bring to the forefront of public attention.

*thread bump*

Lost in all the news this week was that defense arguments for the four men charged in absentia with shooting down MH17 starts Monday.
https://www.courtmh17.com/en/