Pro Russian Rebels Boasted About Downing Plane (UPDATE 23 Americans On Board)

[kpete]

Victims were strewn up to 10 miles away from the crash site. Their nationalities were not immediately available, but Reuters reported 23 were U.S. citizens. German broadcaster RTL reported that 71 Dutch nationals were aboard. Nine British nationals and four French were also on the flight.
http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/story/news/nation/2014/07/17/malaysian-airliner-with-295-aboard-crashes-in-ukraine/12797183/



Pro-Russian rebels discuss the shooting down of the Malaysian Airlines airliner

Mashable has this from a Separatist leader:

KIEV, Ukraine — As news broke of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 being downed in eastern Ukraine, the separatist’s shadowy commander with a pencil mustache issued a dark warning on social media.

...................................

"We did warn you — do not fly in our sky," he wrote.

“And here is the video proving another 'bird' falling down,” he continued. “The bird went down behind a slagheap, not in a residential district. So no peaceful people were injured,” Strelkov wrote, adding that there is also information about a Ukrainian military plane shot down.

However, Strelkov deleted the post when he found out it was actually a commercial jetliner carrying 295 innocent people — not a military aircraft.

When Mashable called Alexander Borodai, self-declared prime minister of Donetsk People's Republic, to ask if the group was responsible for shooting down the plane, to which he responded: "Listen, we don't have these weapons (to down the 777)"

Then he hung up.

the rest:
http://mashable.com/2014/07/17/malaysia-airlines-ukraine-russia-rebel/?utm_cid=mash-com-Tw-main-link
https://twitter.com/GillesKLEIN/statuses/489875490102972417
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/17/1314630/-BREAKING-Malaysian-Boeing-777-Shot-Down-Over-Ukraine

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just UPDATED TO ADD THIS:

Did Ukrainian rebels really take credit for downing MH17?
http://www.vox.com/2014/7/17/5913089/did-this-ukrainian-rebel-commander-take-credit-for-shooting-down-the

******************

Mike Giglio ✔ @mike_giglio
Spokesman for Ukrainian armed forces tells BuzzFeed they can’t reach MH17 crash site, under rebel control. Says rebels took MH17’s black box
11:32 AM - 17 Jul 2014

https://twitter.com/mike_giglio/statuses/489840020082397184

Black Box sent to Moscow.

MH17 fell in territory controlled by the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. A little while ago I heard ABC News reporter Ann Compton report on the radio that the separatists had secured the crash site (which is very large) and also that they had seized the plane's black boxes and sent them to Moscow.

There are now many other news reports on that. For instance:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/....

Gilles Klein @GillesKLEIN
MH17 crash 3rd plane to go down in Donetsk region this week: http://usat.ly/WfA464 pic.twitter.com/xi3hgWoti3 USATODAY
1:53 PM - 17 Jul 2014

https://twitter.com/GillesKLEIN/statuses/489875490102972417


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And it was surface to air missile:

The United States has concluded the Malaysian airline was shot down, a senior U.S. official told CNN's Barbara Starr. One radar system saw a surface-to-air missile system turn on and track an aircraft right before the plane went down Thursday, according to the official. A second system saw a heat signature at the time the airliner was hit, the official said. The United States is analyzing the trajectory of the missile to try to learn where the attack came from.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/17/world/europe/ukraine-malaysia-airlines-crash/index.html

http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/story/news/nation/2014/07/17/malaysian-airliner-with-295-aboard-crashes-in-ukraine/12797183/

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Not even sure what this is, but I know that posting early and posting everything is the BEST way to be sure to get to the truth, eventually......


https://www.facebook.com/russiahandsoff/photos/a.1475496629333491.1073741828.1475320222684465/1515054392044381/?type=1&theater


Russia, hands off Ukraine
This is how the story about #MH17 developed:

1.On morning of June 17, pro-russian terrorists boast that they have captured ground-to-air missile "Buk" and show the pictures.
2. Terrorists shot down a plane and say that this is Ukrainian military transport aircraft AN-26.
3. All YouTube and pro-russian FB and Twitter communities celebrate this fact and distribute video of the burning plane.
4. Ten minutes later, there are reports that the downed aircraft - is passenger airliner Boing which belongs Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 with 295 people on board.
5. All pro-russian communities starts to cut news about captured ground-to-air missile "Buk" and news about Ukrainian AN-26 crash and delete videos.

Here is news from Russian propaganda channel about Ukrainian AH-26, but with photos of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 !!! - http://lifenews.ru/news/136801
https://www.facebook.com/russiahandsoff/photos/a.1475496629333491.1073741828.1475320222684465/1515054392044381/?type=1&theater

This article posted minutes after the crash claiming that "The rebels reported shooting down AN-26 plane in eastern Ukraine", supported by the video from the scene of Boeing 777 crash.

In case this article is deleted. This is webcache of it

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Atc3TPU2icpEJ%3Alifenews.ru%2Fnews%2F136801+&cd=1&hl=uk&ct=clnk&gl=nl




UPDATED 7/18/14

Igor Strelkov, the Russian spec ops agent in charge of the “Donetsk People’s Republic,” who took credit yesterday for shooting down a plane, today is quoted in “Russkaya Vesna” (Russian Spring) as saying that (most of) the passengers on MH 17 had been dead for days. Link is in Russian, sorry. Google Translate doesn’t make his word salad any less sensible, though.

http://rusvesna.su/news/1405676334

[Crabby Appleton]

1. K&R

[riqster]

2. Is there a kpete appreciation thread?

If not, there should be.

[ms liberty]

7. +1 brazillion! She's been on the job every day since the beginning..

kpete and babylonsister have been my most reliable news posters for more than 10 years now.. What would we all have done without them? Been horribly less informed, that's what!

[joeybee12]

3. Come on, this isn't from the RT!!!

We all know they're the only reliable source about the situation in the Ukraine!!!!

KNR

[Cha]

4. Thank you for this, kpete.. :( There are no words.

[sheshe2]

5. No words, kpete.

[NealK]

6. K&R

Thanks for the info.

[Hekate]

8. They never knew what hit them

[mcar]

9. Thank you kpete

Such a terrible tragedy.

[blkmusclmachine]

10. Sad

[Hamlette]

11. Chris Hayes just reported no US passengers on passenger list n/t

[BlueCheese]

12. Occam's Razor...

... leads one to believe that it was the rebels who shot down the plane and killed those 295 people. The deleted social media post, the fact that they had the weapons that could do such a thing, and the fact that they've shot down several aircraft in the last week.

I know some people who cheered Putin's seizure of Crimea because it stuck it to those arrogant Western powers that are always interfering in other people's business, but if this is confirmed, this is something at a completely different level.

[countryjake]

13. Thanks for this thread, kpete.

Recommending!

Here's another interesting link from TASS this morning:

Donetsk People’s Republic militia downs another Ukraine’s An-26 plane — eyewitnesses
http://en.itar-tass.com/world/741164

DONETSK, July 17. /ITAR-TASS/. Militiamen of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) brought down a military transport Antonov-26 (An-26) plane of the Ukrainian Air Force on the outskirts of the town of Torez, eyewitnesses said.

A missile hit the An-26, it fell on the ground and caught blaze, they said.

Oops.

[William769]

14. Great information! Thank you for this OP.

[Cha]

15. Kick for useful information. thanks again kpete

[Spazito]

16. Excellent OP!

Thanks for this, it is very informative.

[Uncle Joe]

17. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, kpete.

[kpete]

18. Not a good day for

peace,
kp

[SidDithers]

19. Kick...

to counteract some of the RT bullshit being pushed.



Sid

[stevenleser]

20. Excellent compilation. Sad there are Putin apologists on DU attempting to spin this.

Let me add one more thing that should be obvious:

The Ukranian government is not engaging in ANY antiaircraft activities and the reason is simple. The rebels have no planes. The only planes flying that could conceivably be considered pro-rebel are Russian. Ukraine does not want to shoot down Russian planes. That would be construed by Russia as justification for invading the entire rest of Ukraine. Ukraine is desperate to avoid giving Russia any such justification.

[wyldwolf]

21. what's the motivation here?

What ideology would incite anyone here to support Putin? Wasn't their a similar brouhaha here over whether Assad used chemical weapons in Syria last year?

[stevenleser]

22. Putin/Russia is perceived to be "the other side" against the US. That is enough for those folks.

It is negative nationalism against the US as described by Orwell. http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/nationalism.html

If your worldview mainly consists of "The US is bad and the root of all evil" then anything/anyone doing things seemingly against the US becomes someone/something to root for.

Obviously, that potentially puts you in a position of supporting some really ugly things, but those folks don't seem to care.

[wyldwolf]

23. good explanation. Thanks.

[William769]

24. kick.

[hankthecrank]

25. K&r n/t

[hrmjustin]

26. K&R!