UK-based blogger group Bellingcat, whose data on the MH17 crash has been slammed by the Russian Prosecutor General Office as a pseudoinvestigation, has published names of 12 people, mainly commanders of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), allegedly involved in the downing of the passenger plane in eastern Ukraine in 2014
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th June, 2019) UK-based blogger group Bellingcat, whose data on the MH17 crash has been slammed by the Russian Prosecutor General Office as a pseudoinvestigation, has published Names of 12 people, mainly commanders of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), allegedly involved in the downing of the passenger plane in eastern Ukraine in 2014.The Wednesday revelations were published hours before the Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT), from which Russia had been excluded, started its press conference. At the conference, the JIT said that it had decided to bring charges against four suspects linked to the crash - three Russians and a Ukrainian.
Bellingcat's new report, which the blogger group says is based on open source data and phone calls intercepted by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), claims that "GRU DNR" � the DPR military intelligence service� � and the group led by commander Igor Bezler played the main role in the plane's downing.
According to Bellingcat, "GRU DNR" coordinated the transportation of the Buk missile, which downed the plane, from Russia to Donbas and then "back to Russia."
In connection with these allegations, Bellingcat mentions Sergey Dubinsky, the head of the "GRU DNR," as well as Oleg Pulatov, Leonid Kharchenko, Eduard Gilazov and Oleg Sharpov.
The website claims that "Bezler Group was the first to spot and misidentify MH17 as a potential target," with Igor Bezler himself, Sergey Povalyaev, Valery Stelmakh and Igor Ukrainets being allegedly directly complicit in it.
Based on SBU phone intercepts, whose credibility has been repeatedly questioned by Russia, Bellingcat suggests that Vostok Battalion head Aleksandr Khodakovsky and his deputy Aleksandr Semyonov, who allegedly "helped coordinate the transport of the Buk in Donetsk," as well as Igor Strelkov, then-DPR "defense minister," who it says apparently gave the green light to the operation to transport the Buk back to Russia, were also linked to the crash.
On July 17, 2014, a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed in Donbas. All 298 people on board, mostly Dutch nationals, died. Kiev accused local militias of downing the aircraft, while they said that had no weapons capable of downing such a plane.
The interim conclusions presented by the JIT suggested that the plane had been downed by a Russian-made Buk missile originating with a military brigade stationed in the Russian city of Kursk. The Russian Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said that all Russian missiles of this type had been decommissioned in 2011.
According to Russian Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolay Vinnichenko, Russia sent to the JIT the data showing that the missile that hit the Boeing was a Ukrainian one, but this information was not taken into account.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has said that the JIT allegations of Russia's links to the crash are groundless and regrettable, adding that the investigation is biased and one-sided. Russian President Vladimir Putin has pointed out that Russia was not allowed to participate in the investigation into the crash, and the country could recognize the results of the probe only in case of Moscow's full participation in it.
