Three Russians and Ukrainians are suspected in the crash of the MH17 flight: we understand who they are

The International Investigation Team (JIT) first announced the names of four people suspected of being involved in Boeing crash, shot down over Donbass in July 2014. Three of them are Russian citizens.

Фото: Depositphotos

According to the investigation team (which includes representatives from the Netherlands, Australia, Malaysia, Belgium and Ukraine), the plane was shot down from a Buk missile launcher belonging to the Kursk 53rd Air Defense Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces.

According to investigators, the following may be involved in the Boeing crash:

• Sergey Dubinsky, retired officer of the GRU Russian Army
• Oleg Pulatov, lieutenant colonel of the Airborne Forces Reserve of the Russian Army
• Leonid Kharchenko, a citizen of Ukraine, the commander of the intelligence unit of the GRU self-proclaimed DNR
• Igor Strelkov, Minister of Defense of the self-proclaimed DPR

Investigators believe that Dubinsky, Pulatov and Strelkov now live in Russia, and Kharchenko in eastern Ukraine, in territory not controlled by the country’s government. All four have been put on the international wanted list, and the case will be transferred to a Dutch court before the end of the year. The first court hearing will take place on March 9, 2020.

On the subject: Who cleans and how after major terrorist attacks and air crashes

At the same time, at a press conference, representatives of the investigative group noted that they would not appeal to the Russian authorities to extradite suspects, since they understand that the Russian constitution prohibits the extradition of citizens to other states.

At the same time, the investigation team will ask the Russian side to independently interrogate the defendants in the case. Russia still refuses to answer the questions of the investigative group, the representative of the group stressed.

The Russian Defense Ministry denies the involvement of the Russian military in the plane crash and puts forward alternative versions of events.

In response to a question from the BBC, Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said that the Kremlin’s attitude towards the investigation is “very well known.”

On the subject: 10 errors we make at airports

“Russia did not have the opportunity to take part in it, although from the very beginning, from the first days of this tragedy, it showed initiative, proactively tried to become part of this investigation, this monstrous catastrophe. Therefore, our attitude towards this investigation is very well known,” he said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry called the accusations against the Russian side absolutely unfounded and aimed at discrediting it. “We continue to have fair questions regarding the quality of the work of the JIT. All this confirms the concerns we expressed earlier about the bias and one-sidedness of the ongoing process. “Nevertheless, the Russian Federation will continue to assist the investigation so that the truth about the death of flight MH17 is established, and the real culprits of the incident receive fair punishment,” says the website of the Russian diplomatic department.

The BBC tells what is known about the people whom the investigation team called.

Oleg Pulatov, call sign “Gyurza”

This and several other photographs of Oleg Pulatov were published on the website of the Kyiv Higher General Command School, from which he graduated. Investigators believe that this particular person was next to the Buk at the time the missile was launched at the Malaysian Boeing. Photo: KVOKU.RU

The name of a retired Airborne Forces officer is mentioned for the first time in connection with the Boeing tragedy.

In 1990, he graduated from the Kiev Higher General Command School. Judging by data from open sources, Pulatov fought in Chechnya, has two Orders of Courage and a medal “For Courage”.

According to the SPARK base, in the 2000s Oleg Yuldashevich Pulatov was the commander of military unit 85954, the 54th separate air assault battalion based in Ulyanovsk.

On the subject: What secrets hide airline boarding passes

By decision of the Ulyanovsk Garrison Military Court, Pulatov was fired from service due to health reasons in the 2008 year.

According to Bellingcat investigators, Pulatov arrived in Donbass in the spring of 2014. A little later, he headed the 2 th division of the GRU DNR (special forces and military intelligence).

According to SBU radio intercepts, it was a man with the call sign “Gyurza” and a voice similar to Pulatov’s who accompanied the Buk from the city of Snezhnoye, was near the complex at the time the missile was launched at the Boeing MH17, and then went to the crash site. According to Bellingcat, it was Pulatov who found and handed over to the DPR leadership the “black boxes” of the downed Boeing.

Leonid Kharchenko, call sign “Mole”

In 2015, Leonid Kharchenko gave an interview to the Donetsk media, presenting himself as the head of the second division of the GRU DNR. Photo: ICORPUS.RU

Kharchenko is a citizen of Ukraine, a native of Donbass. According to investigators, in the summer of 2014, he commanded various intelligence units of the GRU DNR, was a subordinate of Pulatov and Dubinsky.

Judging by the SBU wiretapping data, on July 17, 2014, a person with the call sign “Mole” told another DPR supporter the way to the location of the Buk.

He may also have coordinated the transport of the Buk from Donetsk to the launch site and the subsequent evacuation of the complex back to Russia.

In April 2015, Kharchenko became commander of the second department of the DPR GRU (after Pulatov left). What happened to “Mole” after 2015 is unknown. According to one version, he moved to Russia, settled in the Rostov region and was soon killed.

Sergey Dubinsky, call sign “Khmury”

It was Khmury, according to investigators, who was the key figure in organizing the transportation of the Buk from Donetsk to the village of Snezhnoye. It was from there that the missile that destroyed the Boeing was allegedly launched.

Name Dubinsky in connection with the investigation of the crash of flight MH17 is not mentioned for the first time. It has repeatedly appeared in the reports of the Bellingсat investigation team.

In the Russian press, Dubinsky has long appeared as “General Sergei Nikolaevich Petrovsky.” He is also known by the call sign "Hmury" - a nickname he used for many years, including as a nickname on forums. His real identity and surname became known after the hacking of Igor Strelkov's (Girkin) email in May 2014.

On the subject: How to save time, effort and money while traveling

According to investigations by Ukrainian journalists, “Khmury” spent his childhood in the village of Velikaya Novoselka in the Donetsk region.

According to numerous investigations and interviews of Dubinsky himself, he began his military career in the eighties. During the war in Afghanistan, a young officer led a reconnaissance company of a motorized rifle regiment based in Kabul.

In 1990's, he took part in the war in Chechnya, where he allegedly met Igor Strelkov. Subsequently served in the 22 th brigade of the GRU special forces.

Bellingcat investigators believe that this man is the officer hiding under the call sign “Khmury.” In a conversation with the BBC, Khmury said that the entire report was “a mixture of selected facts and lies.” Photo: BELINGCAT.COM

Military rank Dubinsky unknown. On the forums in social networks, he published pictures in the form of a colonel. But in 2014, in an interview with the media, he was introduced as a major general. Who gave him this title is unclear, although in recent photos he was shot in the form of a Russian sample.

Dubinsky lived for some time in the Rostov region. In April, 2014, he allegedly retired and went to serve in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic.

In the summer of 2014, Dubinsky was the head of military intelligence of the DPR (GRU DPR). This body appeared in the early stages of the Battle of Slavyansk, the first major confrontation between pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian army.

Investigators believe that it is possible to talk about the connection between Dubinsky and the disaster, primarily on the basis of telephone conversations intercepted by the Security Service of Ukraine.

On the subject: Flight secrets that only flight attendants know

On the morning of July 17, 2014, the day of the crash, Dubinsky discussed on the phone with other militiamen that the Buk and its crew had arrived in Donetsk. At the same time, he ordered a installation with a column of tanks from the Vostok brigade to be sent towards Snezhnoye.

In the recordings published by the SBU, a person with the call sign “Khmury” explained the purpose of the transfer. According to him, the installation was needed to protect the militias stationed on the front line south of Snizhne.

“Khmury” himself also went to the combat zone. On the afternoon of July 17, he said in a telephone conversation that he was in Marinovka, a village south of Snezhnoye: “They are hammering with Grad all the time, only now there is a break. The plane has also just been knocked down, “drying”. We have Buk-M, we received it.”

At that moment, according to the authors of the Bellingсat report, Dubinsky still did not understand that instead of a Ukrainian attack aircraft, a passenger airliner had been shot down by mistake.

At the same time, as investigators suggest, at the time of the launch of the projectile that shot down the Boeing, Dubinsky was not present near the installation.

Shortly after the events of July 2014, Dubinsky was forced to leave the east of Ukraine because of a conflict with other leaders of the DPR. He now lives in the Rostov region.

Earlier, the BBC Russian Service contacted by email (the address appeared in the Bellingcat investigation and other sources) a person who appeared in the publication under the nickname “Khmury.” He called Bellingcat's findings "a mixture of cherry-picked facts and lies" and "an attempt to put an owl on the globe."

Igor Strelkov (Girkin)

Photo: wikipedia

Strelkov (real name Girkin) is one of the most famous leaders of pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. It is known that before this he took part in hostilities in Chechnya, Transnistria and Bosnia.

Strelkov became known after the detachment he led captured Slavyansk, Donetsk region, in April 2014. Before that, he worked for many years in the structures of the FSB, then collaborated with the Orthodox oligarch Konstantin Malofeev, who was called one of the main sponsors of the “Russian Spring”, and in March 2014 took part in the operation to annex Crimea.

He was forced to leave the republic and resign on August 14, 2014, after which he returned to Moscow, where in subsequent years he led the Novorossiya movement.

At the time of the crash of the Boeing MH-17, Strelkov headed the Ministry of Defense of the self-proclaimed DPR, which means, according to the investigation, all the separatists involved in the launch of the Buk missile were his subordinates.

“No comments other than those that were previously. The militia did not shoot down the Boeing, I am not commenting on anything else,” Igor Strelkov (Girkin) told the BBC.

According to SBU audio interceptions, the day after the Boeing crash, Strelkov discussed on the phone the return of the Buk to Russian territory.

New Bellingcat Report

Simultaneously with the statement of the investigative group, a new report of the investigating group Bellingcat was published.

In the document, the investigators explain how they established the names of people who may be involved in the death of the flight MH17. This was mainly done on the basis of interceptions of mobile phone conversations.

These interceptions were carried out by the Security Service of Ukraine, which published some records.

According to an investigation based on an analysis of these calls, members of the so-called “Bezler Group” and the Vostok battalion under the command of Alexander Khodakovsky took part in the destruction of the Malaysia Airlines airliner.

Investigators explain in detail why they believe that “Gyurza,” who accompanied the Boeing to the place from which the missile was allegedly launched, is retired Russian Airborne Forces officer Oleg Pulatov, who also used the call sign “Khalif.”

The first time the alleged real name of “Gyurza-Khalifa” was published on the “Antikvariat” and “Glav.su” forums, where in 2014 all the actions of supporters of the DPR and LPR were actively discussed.

The Russian Ministry of Defense has repeatedly criticized the work of the international group Bellingcat, as well as reports on the investigation into the circumstances of the death of the MH17 flight shot down over the Donetsk region of Ukraine.

The agency stated that “the so-called Bellingcat journalistic investigations distort objective facts,” and the information presented in them “has a deliberately anti-Russian orientation and is based on distorted data.”

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, to confirm their conclusions, the authors of the investigation use “data from social networks, various fake publications from the Internet, as well as their own dubious materials.”

Conclusions Bellingcat also rejected in the Kremlin.

Doom MH17

The Boeing 777 crashed in the skies over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014 at 16:20 local time. The plane was traveling on Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. There were 298 people on board, all of them died. Most of the passengers on board were Dutch citizens.

Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Elena Zerkal said that gradually the international investigation team will call more and more new names involved in the tragedy.

“This is just the tip. Naturally, then the number of people involved in this will be much larger than these four people who will be announced,” Zerkal said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine on the eve of the investigative team’s statement.

Earlier, an international investigative team came to the conclusion that the airliner was shot down by a surface-to-air missile fired from a Buk anti-aircraft missile system near the village of Snezhnoye.

According to the findings of the investigative team, the Buk launcher from which the plane was shot down was delivered to Ukraine from Russia.

Moscow denies any involvement in the MN17 crash, putting forward various and often mutually exclusive versions of the fault of the Ukrainian military.

In September 2016, the Russian Ministry of Defense provided its data on the disaster, stating that the Buk missile was not launched from the Snezhnoye area, which was under the control of the DPR.

In October 2015, a similar version was put forward by the manufacturer of Buk installations, the Almaz-Antey concern. Representatives of the concern insisted that the launch was carried out from the area of ​​​​the settlement of Zaroshchenskoye, which was controlled by Ukrainian troops.

At the same time, the Russian Investigative Committee has repeatedly stated that it is considering the launch of an air-to-air missile by a Su-25 attack aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force as a priority version of the disaster.

Read also on ForumDaily:

"No one expected it to be so fast": how climate change is destroying US cities

The end of the world 8 that we experienced: why the predictions about the destruction of the Earth do not come true

Do you want more important and interesting news about life in the USA and immigration to America? — support us donate! Also subscribe to our page Facebook. Select the “Priority in display” option and read us first. Also, don't forget to subscribe to our РєР ° РЅР ° Р »РІ Telegram  and Instagram- there is a lot of interesting things there. And join thousands of readers ForumDaily New York — there you will find a lot of interesting and positive information about life in the metropolis.