The most difficult thing to predict is often the past.
Both keep changing. Damnably so.
So the rebels announced that an AA system was captured from a post in Luhansk. This was a few weeks ago. The Russian media reported this.
The NatsGuard folk reported what the post's captain said. That they hadn't just let the equipment get captured. They'd destroyed it. Only the Ukr media reported this.
This is not an uncommon state of affairs. If the Ukr military uses something, then it can be captured. If the rebels have captured one, then they have one they can use. Once it's used, then we have checked off in our minds, "They have and use one of those." So the next report of its use barely registers. Even if the next use is simultaneous in two places, then in three places, then there are batteries of them. Get one, they multiply and few notice. As with tanks, APCs, Grads, so also with the Buk. Recently they tried to say they captured a Sukhoi. Today they said the Ukrainians were using Uragan rocket launchers. If the pattern holds, they'd have "grown" a functioning Sukhoi in a week or two. Soon it would be announced they captured a Uragan rocket launcher and they'd soon have a dozen of them. It worked with tanks, APCs, Grads--they capture some, and then without capturing any more and with dozens destroyed they still have many, many dozens and the numbers increase. Few notice because you have to look closely to see that if they've captured 3 and 5 were destroyed, how do they have batteries of 3 or 4 of them scattered around for use on the same day in different parts of their territory? So also with the Buk: they captured one or two, but reports have been of 2 or 3. If they got by with a couple, they'd soon have more.
So they captured one that was ruined. For two weeks they did nothing with it as they had their asses bombed off.
Then they shoot down a plane at 20k feet and claim it. They shot down other planes, presumably--the Ukr government really tries to say it was Russian fighters in some cases, but "rebels have Buk" is an easier hypothesis to assume.
Their Buks are sighted.
Then they shoot down the Malaysian plane and the past alters. They don't have the capability. Never did. They forget about the Antonov on 7/14. Does this mean they're implying that the Russians destroyed it?
Today Strelkov said they did capture a Buk a few weeks ago. But it was trash, ruined, disassembled, beyond repair. The big claim was bluster. Which Strelkov-Girkin is surely capable of.
The Russian press is full of this now. Because it suits them.
A Buk missing missiles was allegedly seen heading towards the Russian border from Snizhne through Krasnodon. Somebody here said it's stupid, moving something like that while it's being sought. That misses the point. It was seen, so that's not an issue. The issue is that the border with Russia may be sealed in the next week. If the Ukr gets its hands on that Buk tests may show that it was recently used. Moreover, it has a serial number. They've found MANPADs that had been inspected in Eysk in 4/14--that's in Russia. They found munitions and arms that had been shipped from the factory in Russia, new deployment anywhere in the world, in 3/14. The tank serial numbers they've found frequently don't match what's ever been in Ukraine's forces--the tanks may have been made in Ukr, but were shipped to Russia and kept there. You don't want to let that Buk get captured.
The truth is hard to ascertain, even given the facts.
Predict the future? Piece of cake. It's the past that's hard to predict.
So Soviet.
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