This background text was prepared in the context of the Kuala Lumpur MH17 Conference entitled MH17: The Quest for Justice, organized by JUST, the PGPF and the CRG. 

The underlying objective is to examine the evidence, reveal the truth and uphold the rule of law. 

Today, August 17th 2019, our thoughts are with the families of the victims of the Malaysian Airlines MH17 tragedy. The Conference is dedicated to the memory of the victims. 

It is also a national tragedy for the people of Malaysia. The downing of MH17 with 283 passengers and 15 crew on board, took place barely a few months following the mysterious disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 after departing on March 8, 2014 from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing, with 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board.

It is worth recalling that immediately after the MH17 plane crash on July 17 2014, prior to the conduct of a preliminary investigation, Secretary of State John Kerry and US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power pointed their finger at Moscow without a shred of evidence. In turn,  the allegations directed against Russia were used to justify the imposition of sweeping economic sanctions  against the Russian Federation.

DATE : 17th AUGUST 2019 (SATURDAY)
Time: 7:30am-6:00pm
Venue: Main Auditorium, International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), Kuala Lumpur

According to the official narrative, Malaysian Airlines MH 17 was downed by a BUK anti-aircraft missile by “pro-Russian separatists” with the support of Moscow.

The MH17 Inquiry has been conducted in an insidious fashion, largely responding to political interests.  

Important pieces of evidence including eye witness reports, audio and video material  transmitted through Ukraine Intelligence (SBU) have either been manipulated or excluded from the Dutch inquiry, which largely endorses Washington’s accusations directed against Moscow.

According to Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad  in a statement at the Prime Minister’s office in May 2019:

“They never allowed us to be involved from the very beginning.  This is unfair and unusual. So we can see they are not really looking at the causes of the crash and who was responsible. But already they have decided it must be Russia. So we cannot accept that kind of attitude. We are interested in the rule of law, in justice for everyone irrespective of who is involved.

“They [the West] are accusing Russia but where is the evidence?  

Screenshot Travel Weekly, July 18,2019

The Dutch investigation

Moscow was accused without evidence of being behind the downing of MH17 from the very outset. Both Kiev and Washington concluded prior to the conduct of an investigation that:

“MH17 had likely been brought down by a ground-to-air missile fired from separatist-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine.”

There are three distinct reports:

The first official report on behalf of the Ukrainian government was released by Ukraine’s SBU secret service on August 7 2014, barely three weeks after the MH 17 tragedy (July 17, 2014).

The SBU report (which is discussed later in more detail) accuses pro-Russian rebels of having downed the plane with Moscow’s support.

The Dutch Safety Board Report released in September 2015 largely endorses the BUK missile narrative.

And, a year later in September 2016,  The Dutch Joint investigation Team (JIT)  as part of a criminal investigation “confirmed” that the Malaysian airlines plane was “hit by a Russian-made BUK surface-to-air missile that was brought into Ukraine from Russia before the shootdown and subsequently taken back across the border.”

The assumption prior to the conduct of the DSB investigation was that a BUK missile had brought down MH17, and Russia was behind it.

Concrete evidence supporting other interpretations (including  on site testimonies and the presence of a second aircraft) was casually dismissed by the DSB:

Dutch Safety Board, September 2015 report  (p 9)

The inquiry became increasingly politicized.

President Barack Obama had called up Malaysia’s (former) Prime Minister Najib Razak. At a press conference (July 18, 2014),  “Najib told the press that he had spoken to the Dutch prime minister and the Ukrainian president; In subsequent developments, Prime Minister Najib Razak tacitly accepted the consensus imposed by Washington prior to the conduct of an investigation.

 ‘Obama and I agreed that the investigation will not be hidden and the international teams have to be given access to the crash scene.’

In August 2016, Ukraine president Poroshenko visited Malaysia for discussions with Prime Minister Razak Najib:

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said Malaysia will work with Ukraine to bring the perpetrators to justice. “We will do whatever we can to find the truth for the sake of families who lost their loved ones in this tragic incident. “We are waiting for the criminal investigation report, which is expected to be tabled by the year-end, followed by a meeting to decide on the next course of action,” said Najib. (New Straits Times, August 4, 2016)

Washington’s agenda in liaison with the Kiev regime was to blame Russia. This agenda was never questioned by the Najib government.

Erasing the Initial Evidence

Much of the initial evidence and testimony including eyewitness reports (from various independent sources), recorded in July-August 2014 (in the immediate wake of the event) contradicts the official version. This body of evidence has been dismissed and in some cases destroyed.

In September 2015, in its final report, the Dutch Safety Board presented its findings regarding the Buk TELAR surface-to-air missile system which allegedly shot down MH-17 over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014.

Flash forward to 2018

On 24 May 2018 the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) published an update of its findings pointing (without firm evidence) to the role of the 53 Anti-Missile Brigade of the Russian Army. In May 2018, they launched an appeal for people in Donesk to come forward to corroborate their “findings” re. the deployment of the BUK missile system:

On the following day, the governments of Australia and the Netherlands officially declared that “they hold Russia responsible for the incident”. (see Polygraph Info, May 25, 2018)

Moscow remains the “main suspect” in this politically twisted investigation, which has now led to a legal procedure in the Netherlands directed against the alleged perpetrators.

On June 19, 2019, the International Joint Investigation Team (JIT) announced (video) that international arrest warrants have been issued against four “separatist commanders” of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR). These warrants concern Ukrainian citizen Leonid Kharchenko, and Russian citizens Sergei Dubinsky, Oleg Pulatov, and Igor Girkin.

Moreover, Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt announced in mid-July 2019 that “the UK will provide financial support to the specialist criminal court in the Hague” which is slated to host the trial of the four suspects.

In this report we will first focus on the Timeline as well as selected evidence which has been suppressed including the presence of a second aircraft.

We will then review the official report of the Kiev government prepared by Ukraine’s intelligence service (SBU) as well as the role of the SBU in feeding “evidence” to the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) and the Joint Investigation Team (JIT)

Timeline

The maps below clearly indicate a change in flight path for Malaysian airlines MH17 on July 17. They also indicate on the map the two regions of Ukraine which are part of the warzone, namely Donetsk and Lugansk.

The first dynamic map compares the two flight paths:

It indicates the regular flight path on July 16th which takes the plane in a Southeasterly direction across the Sea of Azov.

The second flight path which is that of July 17th takes the plane over the Donesk oblast warzone, bordering onto Lugansk oblast.

The four static images  indicate screen shots of the Flight Paths of MH17 for July 14-17, 2014

The information conveyed in these maps suggests that the flight path on July 17 was changed.

MH17 was diverted from the normal South Easterly route over the sea of Azov to a path over the Donetsk oblast.

Who was behind the change of  the flight path? And why was the flight path changed?

CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE

Changing MH17 Route From July 14, 2014 to July 17, 2014

Screenshots of Flight Paths of MH17 for July 14-17, 2014

All the eyewitnesses  interviewed by the BBC confirmed the presence of a Ukrainian military aircraft flying within proximity of Malaysian Airlines MH17 at the time that it was shot down:

Eyewitness #1: There were two explosions in the air. And this is how it broke apart. And [the fragments] blew apart like this, to the sides. And when …

Eyewitness #2: … And there was another aircraft, a military one, beside it. Everybody saw it.

Eyewitness #1: Yes, yes. It [second aircraft] was flying under it, because it could be seen. It was proceeding underneath, below the civilian one.

Eyewitness #3: There were sounds of an explosion. But they were in the sky. They came from the sky. Then this plane [second plane] made a sharp turn-around like this. It changed its trajectory and headed in that direction [indicating the direction with her hands].

BBC Report below (removed by BBC) scroll down for alternative youtube version

The original BBC Video Report published by BBC Russian Service on July 23, 2014 was removed by the BBC.

In a bitter irony, The BBC is suppressing its own news productions.

This is the BBC Report which is still available on Youtube  

BELOW SCREENSHOT OF BBC TV REPORT ENTITLED “AND THERE WAS ANOTHER AIRCRAFT” SUPPRESSED BY THE BBC

It had been blocked [March 8, 2016] once more by the BBC. The BBC censors its own reports.

Several other reports and eyewitness testimonies confirm the presence of a second aircraft. Of significance is a December 2014 report by Komsomolskaya Pravda which conducted an interview with a Ukrainian serviceman.

While the substance of the interview (translated from Russian) is contradictory it nonetheless suggests the presence of a second aircraft as confirmed by the suppressed BBC report.

The BBC Refutes and Confirms its Own Lies

It is worth noting that subsequent BBC reports tend to refute the substance of their first onsite investigation in Donesk Oblast with the exception of  a May 2016 BBC documentary which puts forth “several theories”. The documentary puts forth evidence which initially refutes the official story while also intimating and concluding that Russia might have been behind the MH17 tragedy.

According to Australia News in a review of the May 2016 BBC documentary, the Kiev regime is identified as the culprit:

A CONTROVERSIAL new documentary will investigate claims that Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by a Ukraine fighter jet, instead of a Russian missile.In a new BBC documentary titled ‘The Conspiracy Files: Who Shot Down MH17?’, eyewitnesses will share their accounts of how they saw the aircraft being downed by a nearby fighter jet.

“There are eyewitness accounts of other aircraft seen flying next to MH17 close to impact,” a statement from the BBC said.

Link to the May 2016 BBC Documentary 

Bullet Sized Holes

The monitoring OSCE team has not found evidence of a missile fired from the ground as conveyed by official White House statements. As we recall, the US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power stated –pointing a finger at Russia– that the Malaysian MH17 plane was “likely downed by a surface-to-air missile operated from a separatist-held location”:

The team of international investigators with the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) are uncertain if the missile used was fired from the ground as US military experts have previously suggested, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported. (Malay Mail online, emphasis added)

The initial OSCE findings dispelled the claim that a BUK missile system brought down the plane.

Evidently, inasmuch as the perforations are attributable to shelling, a shelling operation conducted from the ground could not have brought down an aircraft traveling above 30,000 feet.

No firm evidence that a BUK missile had actually been fired on July 17th 2014

Expert analysis confirms that the firing of a BUK missile would have left a visible white vapor trail in the sky for about ten minutes after firing (see below).

According to witnesses in Donesk oblast, no vapor trail was seen in the sky on that day. What they saw was a second plane.

There were various images of smoke trails presented and analyzed. (see the BBC documentary).

These pictures however do not correspond to a clearcut white paper trail associated with the launching of a BUK missile.

There were no satellite images or photographic evidence of a vapor trail.

The following images (from BUK missile tests) indicate the nature of the vapor trail.

   Screenshots of RT documentary, October 22, 2019 

Report of the Russian Union of Engineers (RUE)

A detailed and comprehensive report by the Russian Union of Engineers (English translation) largely corroborates the presence of a Second Aircraft )confirmed by eye witnesses).

“… Russian air traffic control recorded the ascent of a Ukrainian Air Force aircraft, presumably an Su-25, in the direction of the Malaysian Boeing 777. The distance between the SU-25 aircraft from the Boeing 777 was between 3 and 5 km.”

The RUE report also corroborates the bullet hole analysis as well as the statements of the OSCE and Peter Haisenko (mentioned above):

According to the official explanation (DSB), it was not the missile that brought down the plane, it was the shrapnel resulting from the missile explosion (prior to reaching the plane) which punctured the plane and then led to a loss of pressure.

This is largely the position of the Dutch Safety Board which explains the holes as a result of the explosion of the missile. This is analysis is tenuous. A shelling operation from a jet fighter was simply not considered by the DSB.

The holes according to the DSB report were the result of so-called “high energy objects coming from the warhead [Buk missile]” (i.e shrapnel from the missile). This assessment was used to dispel the evidence concerning the second aircraft.

According to a BBC (September 9, 2014) “Cockpit window contained numerous small puncture holes suggesting small objects entered from above level of cockpit floor. Damage to forward section indicates plane penetrated by large number of high energy objects from outside”. 

The holes from outside were presented as the result of the explosion of the missile, according to the DSB (13 October 2015)

At 13.20 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) a 9N314M warhead, launched by a Buk surface-to-air missile system from a 320-square-kilometre area in the eastern part of Ukraine, detonated to the left and above the cockpit. The forward section of the aircraft was penetrated by hundreds of high-energy objects coming from the warhead.  

The statement of the OSCE observer Michael Bociurkiw  is not acknowledged by the Dutch Safety Board and JIT reports.

According to Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council spokesman Andriy Lysenko 

“… international investigators believed data from the flight recorders show “the reason for the destruction and crash of the plane was massive explosive decompression arising from multiple shrapnel perforations from a rocket explosion”.

Surface-to-air missiles such as the Buk system widely believed to have shot the passenger jet down can explode near their targets, blasting a cloud of shrapnel into them.”

In a report, the BBC quoting the official Ukraine statement  says that:

” The downed Malaysia Airlines jet in eastern Ukraine suffered an explosive loss of pressure after it was punctured by shrapnel from a missile…. They say the information came from the plane’s flight data recorders, which are being analysed by British experts.”

Our review of the evidence points to

1. the presence of a second aircraft,


2. “bullet like holes” pointing to the possibility of an attack by a second aircraft


3. No firm evidence of a BUK missile attack directed against MH17.


4. Absence of photographic evidence of a vapor trail from a BUK style missile on July 17, 2014

Of significance, Ukraine’s Secret Service (SBU) was given the mandate by the Ukraine authorities of coordinating and gathering the evidence in Eastern Ukraine as well as transmitting it to the Dutch Safety Board and the JIT.

According to the official SBU report entitled Terrorists and Militants planned cynical terrorist attack at Aeroflot civil aircraft  published on August 7, 2014, the SBU accused Russia of having ordered a false flag attack involving the shooting down of its own Aeroflot plane leading to the death of its own citizens, and then blaming it on Kiev, with Russia using the tragedy as a casus belli pretext to invade Ukraine. According to the report: The Donetsk militia were aiming at a Russian Aeroflot passenger plane and shot down the Malaysian MH17 airliner by mistake.

That’s the official Ukraine government story which was acknowledged by the Ukrainian as well as several Western media. See below.

Kiev Post August 7, 2014

According to Britain’s foremost news tabloid, The Mail on Sunday, quoting the head of Ukraine intelligence, the insidious design of the pro-Russian rebels (allegedly supported by Moscow) was to shoot down a Russian commercial airline plane with tourists en route to Cyprus, with a view to blaming the Ukrainian government. The objective of this alleged “false flag” covert op was to create a justifiable and credible pretext for Vladimir Putin to declare war on Ukraine.

“the [Donesk] rebels were meant to down [the] Aeroflot plane… to justify the invasion [of Ukraine by Russia]”,

Valentyn Nalyvaichenko (right), head of Ukraine intelligence (24 February 2014 – 18 June 2015)  that the pro-Russian rebels were “aiming at a Russian passenger plane “so Putin had reason to invade”.

“the crime was planned as a ground for bringing of Russian troops into Ukraine, that is – CASUS BELLI for the Russian military invasion.” (Official statement of Ukraine Security Service, in annex below)

In a bitter irony, according to the report, the alleged “false flag” covert op got muddled. The Donesk rebels got it all wrong and hit the MH17 plane by mistake.

That’s the “official line” which was made public by the Kiev government on August 7, 2014, 3 weeks after the MH17 tragedy.

The former head of Ukraine’s secret service has claimed rebels intended to down a Russian airliner to give Vladimir Putin a pretext for invasion – but blasted Flight MH17 out of the sky by mistake.

Why on earth would pro-Russian rebels who are at war with the Kiev regime shoot down a Russian passenger plane AFL-2074 allegedly with a view to harnessing Russia’s support? It does not make sense.

What’s more, according to SBU Chief Valentyn Nalyvaichenko’s  statement, Moscow was helping the pro-Russian rebels in their alleged false flag op to shoot down Russia’s Aeroflot plane by providing them with a Buk missile system, which allegedly had been discretely smuggled across the border to the Donesk region of Eastern Ukraine. The Aeroflot plane was slated to be “shot down over territory controlled by Ukrainian government troops” with the support of Russia:

Valentyn Nalyvaichenko said that Russian-backed fighters were supposed to take their BUK rocket launcher – which had been transported across the Russian border – to a village called Pervomaiskoe in Ukrainian-held territory west of Donetsk.

But they “screwed up”. The Buk rocket launcher was apparently positioned in the wrong rural location and because of that it targeted the MH17 by mistake:

If they had gone where they had been ordered, he said, they would have hit an Aeroflot flight carrying civilians travelling from Moscow to Larnaca in Cyprus.

Crucially, the crash site would have been in Ukrainian-held territory. (Mail on Sunday, August 9, 2014)

The August 2014 “intelligence” report released by SBU Chief Nalyvaichenko bordered on ridicule and incompetence to say to the least.

(Since its release in August 2014, the link to the original SBU report is no longer available. The full text of the SBU report is published in annex to this article.)

Who is Valentyn Nalyvaichenko. His role in the MH17 investigation

Valentyn Nalyvaichenko commissioned the SBU report on behalf of the Kiev government in July 2014 in coordination with The National Security and National Defense Committee (RNBOU) of which the Secretary General was Andriy Parubiy (February 27, 2014 — August 7, 2014), followed by the appointment of Oleksandr Turchynov (December 16, 2014 — 19 May 2019)

The RNBOU oversees National Security and Intelligence (SBU), the Ministry of Defense, the Armed Forces, Law Enforcement.

Parubiy who is currently president (chair) of the Ukrainian Parliament was the co-founder of the Neo-Nazi  Social-National Party of Ukraine (subsequently renamed Svoboda). He is routinely received with red carpet treatment in Canada, the US and the European Union.

Both  Nalyvaichenko and Parubiy are followers of Ukrainian Nazi leader Stepan Bandera, who collaborated in the mass murderer of Jews, Russians and Poles during World War II.

Can we trust the SBU? 

Following the MH17 tragedy, the head of Ukraine’s SBU was entrusted with the gathering and feeding of evidence to the Dutch inquiries. In fact most of the information and analysis (including recordings of telephone conversations, video, audio material) transmitted to the JIT emanated from the SBU.

Is the information and evidence transmitted by the SBU reliable?

An indepth forensic analysis conducted by  OG IT Forensic Service led by Akash Rosen points to the manipulation of telephone conversations, video and audio material by the SBU. The OG IT report confirms unequivocally that the “evidence” submitted by Ukraine’s SBU to the JIT has been manipulated.

Akash Rosen was interviewed in the MH17 documentary entitled MH17 Call for Justice, directed by Yana Yerloshova, which sheds light on the deceptive role of Ukraine’s Secret Service.

Fraud and Corruption within the SBU. The Neo-Nazi connection

While the media has remained silent on the matter, the insidious role of the SBU has nonetheless been acknowledged. A December 2015 report in the Irish Times suggests that:

“Institutionally corrupt” is an understatement. The former head of the SBU is an avowed Nazi. Ukraine’s intelligence service not to mention the National Guard and elements within the military in 2014-2015 were largely under the control of two neo-Nazi parties: Svoboda and Right Sector.

The SBU was also in permanent liaison with Western intelligence including the CIA and MI6.

The head of Ukraine intelligence Valentyn Nalyvaichenko appointed by the Kiev regime worked in tandem with the Neo-Nazi Right Sector leader Dmitro Yarosh who in turn played a key role in setting up the Azov Battalion (see image right), a National Guard entity integrated by Neo-Nazis, operating in Eastern Ukraine in so-called “anti-terrorist” operations. Dmitro Yaroch, who became member of parliament was appointed advisor to the Chief of general staff of the Ukrainian army.

Eduard Dolinsky, director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, “made the accusation on Facebook against Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, head of the Security Service of Ukraine (see the news website evreiskiy.kiev.ua report) after Nalyvaichenko said his organization [the SBU] needed to base its work on the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or UPA, which murdered thousands of Jews in the ’40s. The UPA under the leadership of Stepan Bandera collaborated with the Third Reich during World War II”( quoted in The Times of Israel 15 April 2015)

In an [April 2015] interview with the local media … Nalyvaichenko said the Security Service “does not need to invent anything new, it is important to build on the traditions of the [Nazi] Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and UPA in the 1930-1950 years.”

The popularity of UPA, which for a time collaborated with the Nazi occupation to further UPA’s ambitions of sovereignty from Russia, has soared in Ukraine since a 2013 revolution that led to armed conflict with pro-Russian militias in Ukraine’s east.

Earlier this month [April 2015], the Ukrainian Parliament passed a bill that opened the door to state recognition of UPA, previously a taboo because of the widespread war crimes committed by its troops. The Times of Israel (15 April 2015)

Those war crimes have not ceased. The Atlantic Council, (June 18, 2015) a Washington Think Tank with close links to both the Pentagon and the US State Department acknowledged that the Right Sector ha