Ukraine
Malaysian Plane Shot Down by Missile, US Official Says - WP
Missile Downed Malaysia Airlines Jet Over Ukraine, US Official Says - LAT
Airliner Down in Ukraine Separatist Area - NYT
Both Sides in Ukraine Deny Shooting Down Malaysian Plane - AP
Ukraine, Rebels Trade Blame for Crash With 295 on Board - WP
Putin Says Ukraine 'Bears Responsibility' for Malaysia Flight Jet Crash - NBC
Ukraine Says Rebels Shoot Down Malaysian Airliner, 295 Dead - Reuters
Web Evidence Points to Pro-Russia Rebels in Downing of MH17 - CSM
Powerful Buk Missile Suspected in Malaysia Plane Disaster - AP
Malaysia Airlines Flight Was 1,000 Feet Above Restricted Ukraine Airspace - LAT
Report: Russia Denies It Shot Down Ukrainian Warplane - VOA
Malaysian Airliner Downed in Ukraine With 295 Aboard - USAT
Malaysia Airlines Jet Apparently Shot From Sky, Crashes in Ukraine - LAT
At the Scene, a Bitter Smell and Crumpled Bodies - NYT
Ukraine Separatist Social Media Site Claims Plane Downing - RFE/RL
Russian Military Buildup Near Ukraine Concerns DoD Officials - AFPS
Pentagon: F-15 Pullout From Europe May Be On Hold - S&S
US Sanctions Strike Russia's Top Firms - VOA
Russia Warns of Grave Impact From New US Sanctions - WP
US and EU Boost Sanctions on Russia - BBC
US Officials: Russia Increasing Support for Ukraine Rebels - AFPS
MH17: What We Know So Far - WOTR Update
A History of Passenger Planes that Were Shot Out of the Sky - WP
Crash In Pictures - RFE/RL Images
Vladimir Putin Can Stop This War - NYT Editorial
If Past Is Prologue, EU Needs To Up Its Game With Russia - RFE/RL Opinion
What Would it Take to Shoot Down MH17? - WP Opinion
Comments
Looks like a Times reporter who took photos at the crash has potential shrapnel damage on a number of the pieces of the downed aircraft and then released them via twitter---consistent with that type of SAM hit.
http://www.focus.de/politik/videos/bilder-eines-reporters-beweis-fuer-a…
Now the Russian mercenaries who have been losing in eastern Ukraine are holding the dead bodies of those slaughtered in the shot down as "hostages" for a truce---somehow I had heard and read Putin declaring an international investigation was needed.
Not so sure he meant holding dead bodies of civilians that his missile shot down as hostages is what the international community wants.
"The separatists have long demonstrated that they’re willing to go to grotesque lengths to keep eastern Ukraine out of Kiev’s hands. Desperate to avoid both culpability and defeat, they’re now using the bodies of MH17 victims as collateral to achieve those ends."
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine-abroad/new-republic-pro-russian…
Madu---actually a good plan to work through---the core issue is that Putin has gone so far out in his new Doctrine of supporting "our people" reflecting as well that image in the Russian polls that now if he is forced to concede a military defeat of the Russian mercenaries then he himself is in political trouble within his Russian population which in the latest polling is 1) reflecting no heart in a war with the Ukraine and 2) are starting to slowly question Putin's moves.
The polls while strong are starting to show Putin is slipping.
This last round of sanctions really hit hard---Putin was immediately on the phone with Obama complaining bitterly about them as it cut off for some of the large Russian firms access to lines of credit and loans ---many do not know that Russian companies live off of "pump" using their earnings as a fake measure of their success along the while hiding their credit lines and loans---and are always on the hunt for new capital---actually the entire Russian economy is one large Ponzi scheme and if the capital does not flow then the serious threat of a collapse is a given.
Putin knows the next round is coming and it will be probably targeted against Gasprom as that is the cash cow for Putin and his friends.
Putin is a complicate individual raised in the old communist days were defeat is measured in ones having no weapon in ones hands at the end of a fight---notice in all the early Ukraine agreements he was going along with the disarming of the Russian irregulars---in one of his latest statements he demands they remain armed---you know the Ukrainians are not going for that model.
If they are disarmed he sees himself as being defeated and he personally cannot accept that outcome.
So, it's going to take me some time to pull some stuff together - I am still going through the paper I mentioned in Small Wars and Insurgencies and matching up portions to various threads here, for discussion - but I think much of the DC Sunday morning rabble rousing by the usual agenda-ed crew is to use this incident to create an atmosphere where certain sanctions are more likely to take place.
I have learned over the years to track back sources, look at funding, try and do things like that and I do it for everything, whether its the type that says the US backed a coup in Kiev or those that seem incapable of understanding the situation outside Russia and Putin.
And I've been getting better on creating a wider intellectual net on South Asia too, and realizing that there are so many influences and most analysts only talk about a few.
For this instance, I would search the literature on sanctions, how they might work, and who in DC is advising which party, and for what reasons: ideology, money, etc.
Russian mercenaries attempting to hide evidence and black boxes. SBU voice intercepts confirm Moscow in definitely in touch with the terrorists in Donetsk and appear to be behind the hiding of evidence.
So much for Putins' assurances that a thorough investigation should take place.
Why does the current WH believe a single word from Putin as he has never delivered on a single item he has publicly stated he will do.
Time to sanction Gazprom to the fullest extent possible then you will get his attention.
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/ssu-356979.html
Militant groups of self-proclaimed Donbas People's Republic might already be in possession of at least two Malaysia Airlines Boeing's flight recorders and are keen to get ahold of all the evidence from its crash site, citing "interest" from Moscow. The conversation shows that the separatists are intent on obstructing an international investigation under way.
The alleged intercepted phone conversations are between Oleksandr Khodakovskyi, commander of the Kremlin-backed separatists' Vostok Battalion and two militants identified only by their first names. The conversations show that the militants working at the site of deadly air crash of Malaysia Airlines Fight MH17 are given a task of getting ahold of all the evidence they can locate and keeping it away from anyone else. The ill-fated flight from Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur flight on July 17 crashed after a missile struck it from separatist-held territory, killing almost 300 civilians
At one point during the conversation, Khodakovskiy points out that two "black boxes" have already been obtained by a militant nicknamed Khmuryi, identified in the conversation as the head of intelligence of Igor Girkin (Strelkov), DNR's military commander.
The preliminary results of investigations conducted by both U.S. and Ukrainian authorities show that the Malaysia Airlines Boeing was shot by a surface to air missile fired from the territory controlled by Russian-backed sepaparatists.
The primary focus is on "black boxes," Khodakovskyi instructs a militant named Andriy during the alleged phone conversation, but the rest of the evidence is no less important.
"All that you find must not come into someone else's hands," he said.
MF---the SAM 11s and 17s are just the tip of new Russian military equipment we the Army have yet to fully understand---DoD should finally get concerned about the "conventional" fight because we are nowhere close to being equal with the Russian Army in that game right now.
We do not have anything other than the Patriot and we do not even have MANPADs in the Force structure.
Good stuff Outlaw,
Breaking Defense and CSIS both pointed out that because the flight path of the aircraft was heading east from the Netherlands, there is no way the Ukrainian air defenses would have shot down the airliner in error thinking it was Russian. Ukraine also probably identified it as a civilian aircraft due to ATC tracking.
Your comment about the Su-25 downing and the fact that the Wikipedia, etc. minimum altitude for the SA-11/17 is only 100' should help convince the A-10 believers that the Warthogs days should be numbered for the same reason that 4th generation aircraft will be replaced by the F-35, F-22, and EA-18G until air defense are reduced.
However, I also read other articles this week where T.X. Hammes was advocating for slower swarming small UAS like the Harpy. Aside from the airspace implications, these simply would not survive against systems like the Buk or more advanced newer air defenses. There is scary stuff out there that unless you know about them, you hold onto beliefs that cheap and simple will work.
Then you look at "not cheap" systems like MV-22 that must fly high to get the most range and escape MANPAD threats but then become vulnerable to radar air defenses. Think about that 100' minimum Buk altitude and realize that Wikipedia says it is just 50' for the later SA-17. In other words a slow helicopter can hover and fire from terrain defilade because it can fly at 50' at slow/no speed. An MV-22 or Future Vertical Lift tilt rotor cannot, nor can an MV-22 or FVL tilt rotor effectively drop troops by fast rope onto a ship to seize control of it per T.X. Hammes Offshore Control concept.
The Ukrainian SBU has been releasing their voice intercepts---for all the supposed IT and voice intercept power of the NSA surely they recorded something that can be released as the Ukrainians are doing as it will end the assumptions.
Cannot believe a second rate intel service is better at this than the NSA/CIA combined.
This is the link to the Russian mercenaries' voice intercepts clearly indicating the SAM 11 came over the Russian border together with a missile crew. sorry the video is in Russian but they do have an English translation accompanying the article.
They carried yesterday a voice intercept of the mercenaries actually talking about the shot down from the crash site and calls going to Russian intelligence officers probably GRU.
There was also a video that captured the SAM 11 driving by missing the middle missile.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgdqdklrqDA
Here is the video link for the Russian AF pilot who was asking for clearance to shot down the Ukrainian SU25 starts around minute six.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pInHtYTsiU
From Kyiv Post today;
Ukraine’s security service, known as the SBU, on July 18 published additional intercepted telephone conversations that further implicate Russia in the downing of the Malaysia Airline Flight 17, killing all 298 people on board on July 17. The conversations allegedly took place between Russian military intelligence officers and their armed proxies who discussed the delivery of a Buk missile system from Russia ahead of the downing of the Malaysian passenger jet.
Classified by NATO as SA-11 GADFLY, Buk missile systems are advanced, radar-guided surface-to-air missile systems, or SAM in military lingo. Four Russian SAM systems could knock down a passenger jet flying at 33,000 feet, according to Defense Tech, the same altitude at which the Malaysian airliner was flying when it was hit.
In the intercepted conversations, the Russian officers and Kremlin-backed militants express relief in finally getting their hands on a Buk-M system, one of four modified versions of the Russian SAM. Kyiv believes the Russians in Donetsk Oblast used the Buk-M2 because Ukraine’s military doesn’t have them in its arsenal.
Until recently, Ukraine had enjoyed relative air superiority over the Kremlin-backed militants.
But on July 14, a missile allegedly fired from the Russian side – it’s unclear whether it was air-to-air or ground-to-air – shot down an An-26 Ukrainian military transport plane in Luhansk Oblast near the Ukrainian-Russian border, according to the Ukrainian government.
On July 16, a Ukrainian Su-25 fighter jet was allegedly shot down by an air-to-air missile fired by a MiG-29 jet in Russia, according to Andriy Lysenko, spokesperson for the National Security Defense Council.
To destroy the Su-25, on July 16 at 6:55 p.m. near the town of Amvrosiyivka, “the Russian Air Force ordered the pilot of a MiG-29 plan to use an R–27T (AA–10 Alamo–B) medium range Infra Red homing air–to–air missile.
This type of missile cannot be detected by the Su–25’s SPO–15 radiation warning receiver, and neither can it be detected by satellite surveillance systems or post–launch surveillance systems,” stated Lysenko. “During the air fight, Russian fighter aircraft homed in on the Ukrainian plane three times for a guaranteed rocket launch.
After the target was acquired with the help of an onboard quantum optical location station, the MiG–29 fired one missile at the Ukrainian plane. It is only thanks to the skillful anti–missile maneuvers of the Ukrainian pilot that a direct hit was avoided. The missile hit the motor nozzle and the pilot crash–landed the plane.”
At a press briefing in Kyiv on July 18, Lysenko showed a radio conversion allegedly between the Russian MiG-29 pilot and his base as he attempts to shoot down a Ukrainian aircraft. The conversation starts after the sixth minute.
Concerning the delivered Buk system from Russia, the SBU says it crossed into Ukraine at 1 a.m. on July 17 close to the town of Sukhodolsk. Later that morning at 9 a.m., it arrived in Donetsk, but was later moved to Pervomaisk. After the Malaysian passenger jet was shot down, the Interior Ministry's intelligence unit recorded a crawler tractor carrying a missile system moving towards the border of Russia. The video clearly shows missiles, with the middle one of three missing.
“We're analyzing this and other collected information. We think this is the very Buk system which shot at the civilian plane flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur,” Interior Ministry Avakov said. He said that the terrorists were “trying to hide evidence of the terrible crime.”
Below is the video and full English-language transcript of alleged conversations between Russian military intelligence officers and their proxies regarding the receipt and delivery of a Buk system from Russia: