"McClatchy and Bellingcat both admit that they are relying on the Ukrainian secret services for their phone intercepts, as they had previously for the videos of the alleged Russian Buk convoy."
5/31/18, "Sinister Choreography of the MH17 Probe to Smear Russia," Strategic Culture Foundation, Finian Cunningham
The so-called Joint Investigation Team (JIT) released an
update last Thursday on its ongoing probe into the MH17 air disaster
over Eastern Ukraine, in which all 298 people onboard were killed. The
JIT’s latest release moves the accusation of culpability closer to
Russia, with the team claiming that an anti-aircraft Buk missile, which
allegedly shot down the plane, was brought into Ukraine by Russia’s 53rd
Brigade based in Kursk, southwest Russia.
Then on Friday, the day after the high-profile JIT presentation, a news report compiled by US-based McClatchy News and UK-based self-styled online
investigative website Bellingcat was published claiming to have
identified a senior Russian military intelligence (GRU) officer as being
involved in the transport of the missile system.
The
Russian GRU officer is named as Oleg Vladimirovich Ivannikov. The
report includes a photograph of the named man, who is said to have at
least one residential address in Moscow and who used the call sign
“Orion”. Tellingly, the McClatchy report claims that news of identifying
the Russian military officer was not known by the JIT when it made its
presentation the day before. But McClatchy reported that the Dutch-led
investigators now want to arraign “Orion”.
Over the weekend, the Dutch, Australian and British governments upped the ante by formally accusing Russia,
and demanding that Moscow pay financial compensation to families of the
crash victims. Most of those onboard the doomed MH17 were Dutch,
Malaysian and Australian nationals.
What
we are seeing here is a choreographed sequence trying to give the
public impression that developments in the probe are taking a natural
course based on “evidence” imputing blame to Russia. The same technique
of media psychological operation can be seen in the Skripal poisoning
affair in which Moscow is blamed for trying to assassinate a former spy
in England. Allegations, purported evidence, and then sanctions
(expulsion of Russian diplomats) all follow a choreographed sequence.
On the MH17 incident, Russia has vehemently denied any
involvement in the passenger plane’s downing. Moscow says its own
investigation into the incident points to the Kiev regime’s armed forces
as being responsible, possibly using their stock of Soviet-era Buk
anti-aircraft missiles. Significantly, Russia’s investigative results
have been spurned by the JIT, while Moscow’s offers of contributing to
the probe have been rebuffed. As in the Skripal affair, where the
British authorities have also refused Russia’s offers of joint
investigation, or Russia’s ability to independently verify the
supposedly incriminating data.
In a dramatic twist, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said that
the missile casing displayed by the Dutch investigators bore features
dating the weapon to 1986 when Ukraine was a Soviet Republic. The
Russian military said that all such Buk models were replaced by its
forces in 2011. Therefore, the alleged offensive weapon presented by the
JIT last week could not have come from Russian forces. Besides, Moscow denies that any of its brigades crossed into Ukrainian territory.
The
JIT, which includes investigators from Holland, Belgium, Australia,
Malaysia and – invidiously – Ukrainian secret services, openly acknowledged in
its presentation last week that it is cooperating with the Britain-based Bellingcat website. The latter is cited for its analysis
of videos purporting to show the transport of a Russian military Buk
convoy through Eastern Ukraine at around the time of the airliner being
shot down. Those videos have already been exposed as fabrications.
Now
it seems rather strange that the JIT was reported by McClatchy as not
knowing of Bellingcat’s next “scoop” published the following day in
which it claims to identify a Russian military officer, named as Oleg
Ivannikov or Orion, for being involved in coordinating the transport of
the Buk convoy, which the JIT says came from the 53rd Brigade in
Russia’s Kursk.
The
JIT and Bellingcat have collaborated in a previous update to its MH17
probe, in 2016, when the dubious videos were presented as purportedly
showing the Buk convoy traversing Eastern Ukraine back to Russia.
Bellingcat was cited again in the JIT’s update last Thursday.
That
raises the question of why the information claiming to identify the
Russian military officer was not available to JIT, even though the
latter has worked closely with Bellingcat before? It was the next day
when the McClatchy-Bellingcat news report came out, seemingly separate
to the JIT presentation.
The
sequence suggests a concerted effort to “build” a public perception
that “clues” into the cause of the air crash and the incrimination of
Russia are being assembled in an independent manner. When, in reality,
the sequence is actually a deliberately orchestrated media campaign, to
more effectively smear Russia.
Bellingcat’s media activities indicate that it is not the supposed “independent online investigative website” it claims to be. During the Syrian war, it
has helped to peddle claims that videos sourced from the White Helmets are “authentic” when in fact there is strong evidence that
the White Helmets have been fabricating videos of atrocities on behalf
of NATO-sponsored terrorists in order to smear the Syrian government and
its Russian ally.
For the Dutch-led JIT to associate with Bellingcat as a source of
“evidence” is a matter of grave concern as to the probe’s professional
credibility.
Moreover,
what is also fatally damaging to the MH17 probe is that the Ukrainian
secret services (SBU) under the control of the Western-backed Kiev
regime, which came to power in the NATO-backed February 2014 coup d’état, is the source for much of the so-called evidence implicating
Russia or the pro-Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine for shooting
down the MH17 airliner.
The
dubious videos cited by the JIT and Bellingcat were sourced from the
SBU. Those videos were purportedly posted on social media at the time of
the plane crash by anonymous members of the public. The Russian
government has dismissed those videos as fake.
The
latest claims by McClatchy and Bellingcat of identifying a Russian
military officer are based on allegations that mobile phone intercepts
are attributable to the man named as Orion. Bellingcat appears to have
expended a lot of effort trawling through digital phone books to
identify the individual. The report also relies on embellishment of
Orion’s alleged secret military career in Ukraine and South Ossetia by
way of lending a sense of credibility and sinister innuendo.
However,
the bottomline is that McClatchy and Bellingcat both admit that they
are relying on the Ukrainian secret services for their phone intercepts,
as they had previously for the videos of the alleged Russian Buk
convoy.
The
SBU and its Kiev masters have an obvious axe to grind against Moscow.
Their partisan position, not to say potential liability for the air
crash, thus makes the JIT and subsequent Western media reporting highly
suspect.
Such
close involvement of a Western media outlet (McClatchy) with a fake
news engine (Bellingcat) and Ukrainian state intelligence is indicative
of coordinated public psychological operation to smear Russia.
The
prompt responses from Western governments calling for criminal proceedings against Moscow are further indication that the whole effort
is an orchestrated campaign to frame-up Russia."
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https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/05/31/sinister-choreography-of-the-mh17-probe-to-smear-russia.html
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