MH17: ten years of Russian lies and denial

July 17 marks 10 years since the dramatic match in which Russia fired a BUK 9M83 surface-to-air missile from areas near Ukraine to bring down ill-fated Malaysia Airlines flight MH17. All 298 civilians on board the plane were killed. The Netherlands and Australia have established that Russia is responsible for the deployment of the Buk launcher that launched the ill-fated flight MH17 in violation of international law. Since that future, pro-Kremlin disinformation outlets have spread dozens of different disinformation stories to distract from the fact that the Russian government is responsible for those killings. EU member states have stated clearly – the negative Russian disinformation campaign could distract from the common information established through a court of law.

Although the annexation of Crimea and the killing of 298 civilians was not such a big deal, Russia has also been waging an unprovoked and clearly imperialist war against Ukraine for the last 2.5 years.

igor the vile

For the past ten years, the Russian government has done its best to hide its connections to the murder of 298 innocent civilians aboard flight MH17 behind a curtain of lies and denials. However, their initial reaction to the downing of the plane was one of triumph, celebration and arrogance, as the perpetrators did not yet realize that they had shot down a civilian airliner protecting almost 300 countries.

In the minutes following the downing of MH17, Igor Girkin, the self-proclaimed ‘Defence Minister’ of the so-called ‘People’s Republic of Donetsk’, shared footage of smoke from the downed plane, proudly declaring: ‘We warned you – Don’t fly over our skies.’

After some time, Girkin tried to delete the message and pretend he had never said such a thing. So far, Girkin has got his fill. On 17 November 2022, the District Court of The Hague found Girkin guilty along with another Russian citizen, Sergei Dubinsky, and Ukrainian citizen Leonid Kharchenko and sentenced them to life imprisonment for the skirmish between Aviation MH17 and the killing of 298 people on board. Person on board. The court also ordered him to pay more than €16 million to the victims. After all, those criminals who have been attempted to be prosecuted in absentia usually do not receive a sentence. Then again, the reality of the decision remains. His guilt was confirmed beyond reasonable hesitation.

Years later, during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Girkin rebranded himself as an ultra-nationalist military commentator. He also proved his bloodthirstiness by openly criticizing Russian methods throughout the invasion as too soft and humane. Putting the negative mistake together, Girkin did not criticize the fact that Russia was invading a different country, but rather that they were doing it wrong. Successfully, he was once criticized as a failure of Putin. And, in Putin’s Russia, that could be a big no-no. So, Girkin was summarily thrown into a Russian prison with a four-year sentence for ‘inciting extremism’, in exchange for a generation’s sentence for the downing of MH17, as ruled by a Dutch court.

additional atrocities

More than two years after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, we see Russia view the downing of MH17 as a practice session for a number of disinformation narratives and manipulation tactics. There have been thousands of casualties in Ukraine in this unprovoked fighting. The Kremlin tries to justify this with various far-fetched disinformation narratives, although some of Russia’s atrocities received particularly pro-Kremlin disinformation treatment, as did MH17.

War crimes committed by Russian infantrymen at Bucha; bombing of theatres, maternity hospitals and alternative civilian targets in Mariupol; Bombing of the Novaya Kakhovka Dam; and the leveling of the city of Bakhmut are the most obvious examples among many others.

Let’s look at how pro-Kremlin outlets were using homogeneous disinformation methods and narratives during the fight against Ukraine, as they did to obscure the reality about MH17.

First lie: We never said we did it

The Primary Lie – ‘We never said we did it!’ – This is a standard instant reaction when making a terrible mistake.

In the MH17 case, the Kremlin seems determined to persist with lies and denials. The EUvsDisinfo database contains more than 481 cases of disinformation on MH17. A particular detail of the historical past of lies in this case are the brutal attempts to assemble an ‘alternative version’ of the tragedy.

Pro-Kremlin shops adopted this tactic from the MH17 playbook after the Bucha massacre. At first, the Kremlin denied that it had happened at all, then it denied any Russian involvement, and eventually it blamed others and spread conspiracy theories about possible perpetrators.

Second lie: It was staged once

On July 18, 2014, just 24 hours after the downing of MH17, Mr Girkin, now attempting to hide his first triumphant smile, presented his first mock model of the tragedy. ‘According to those who were collecting bodies after the accident, a large portion of the bodies were “not fresh” – people had died several days earlier,’ he claimed.

This comment is not just an obnoxious lie and an embarrassment to the people of the country who lost their loved ones in the attack. It is also a copyright infringement of the BBC’s Sherlock Holmes episode, ‘A Scandal in Belgravia’, where this exact scheme is played out. This episode aired in Russia in January 2012.

As of April 2022, following the Bucha massacre in Ukraine, pro-Kremlin outlets offered explanations as to why Ukraine would stage such a tragic mock-up using actors or corpses, again harking back to MH17 methods.

Third Lie: They Did It Yourself

Then after the July 17, 2014 tragedy, several Russian outlets reported that Ukrainian forces had downed the Russian President’s plane.

A source at Russia’s Federal Wind Shipping Company, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Interfax information agency that the target of the Ukrainian missile would likely have been the Russian President’s plane. According to the source, the Russian ‘Air Force One’ and the Malaysian Boeing were similar at one time and flew in the same air corridor.

Russia’s Wind Energy Forest is a completely different form of aircraft and with the far more homogeneous red-white-blue livery and has adopted other routes entirely. This claim is undoubtedly one of the oldest and most ancient.

After the Russians blew up the Kakhovka Dam in June 2023, the Kremlin was quick to blame the dam’s breach on Ukraine, even though it was located in the nearest Russian-held areas. Once again, those allegations echo the MH17 reports. Inevitably, Russian commentators also came to the conclusion that ‘the West’ was behind the attack, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. Some pro-Kremlin knowledge manipulators also sought to draw parallels with the Bucha atrocities and the Nord Wave pipeline explosions, while others sought to ridicule Ukraine by portraying the attack on the dam as an extreme miscalculation by its defense force. .

Blaming Ukraine and the West

On July 19, 2014, two days after the tragedy, the Twitter account of an unnamed ‘Carlos, a Spanish dispatcher’ who ran visitor monitors at Kyiv airport, claimed that the plane had been shot down by two Ukrainian fighter jets. It was briefly confirmed that there was no ‘Carlos’ running for Ukrainian Breeze site visitors and the Twitter account was deleted. However, known pro-Kremlin disinformation state-outlet RT ran a story about Ukrainian air-to-air missiles as recently as 22 June 2021, which revealed that the fighter jet model had not yet been rejected.

Mainstream pro-Kremlin outlets also focused their attention on the claim that the Buk device in question was once operated by Ukrainian forces. Such claims have been common – this is an example from Russian news outlet RT in early June 2021. The Armed Forces of Ukraine also operated Buk installations, although all individual missiles were held responsible for the tragedy.

The Kremlin also claimed that the plane was carrying an unidentified bomb. It attempted to suggest that the tragedy was Ukraine’s responsibility and therefore, following the core principle of ‘cui bono’ – who benefits – that Ukraine is accountable. And naturally, the Kremlin disinformation system also claimed that the MH17 photos were a false flag operation and a devious plan to discredit Russia. The EUvsDisinfo database on disinformation covers various situations where pro-Kremlin outlets suggest the ‘real culprits’ behind MH17 are: British perception, Dutch, US citizens and Western elites. And naturally, Ukrainians.

When the Russian invaders committed their subsequent war crime: shelling the maternity wards, those cunning methods were once again discarded. 3 In Mariupol, some innocent people, including children, were killed. At first refusing their duty, they went against the grain claiming that the maternity ward had been taken over by the Azov Battalion, which had ordered all pregnant women, scientific nurses and other workers out of the construction . The reference to the Azov battalion was apparently intended to divert attention from the crime by invoking the Kremlin’s favorite Nazi regime narrative.

None of the claims are supported by any credible assets. In the Netherlands the true evidence presented was completely ignored by the court.

fact

In November 2022, the court in The Hague sentenced three of four suspects in the MH17 criminal case to life imprisonment for their role in the shooting down of a Malaysia Airways plane over eastern Ukraine on 17 July 2014. The fourth suspect was once acquitted by the court.

Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky and Leonid Khartchenko won the Generation in Prison. The charges against Oleg Pulatov were not legally and firmly confirmed by the court. The prosecution had sought life imprisonment for all 4 suspects.

Pro-Kremlin outlets have been quick to dismiss the verdict, characterizing the case as a legal sham, blaming Ukraine, and questioning the integrity of the Dutch criminal gadget. All reactions are completely in sequence with the alternative narratives that Russian outlets were spreading to avoid all blame for this massacre.

The ocular Kremlin has used similar methods and narratives to avoid blame for many alternative atrocities as the downing of MH17 confirms their ruthless obsession with reaching their goals. It is sad that we have not been able to uncover fresh information about their vicious acts and despicable ways. Don’t be deceived!