Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (CLICK TO ENLARGE):
When Russia-Backed Forces Boasted They Shot Down A Ukrainian Military Plane…That Was Actually MH17
By Carl Schreck
The wreckage of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 was still smoldering in the countryside of eastern Ukraine, the remains of the 298 people aboard strewn across several kilometers of rolling fields of wheat and sunflowers, when Russian media began relaying news of a downed plane in the area.
“A fresh victory for the Donetsk rebels: Another Ukrainian plane was shot down in the city of Torez,” the anchorwoman for the Kremlin-loyal network LifeNews told viewers, referring to Russia-backed separatists fighting Kyiv’s forces in the region known as the Donbas:
The shoot-down led the network’s news segment on the evening of July 17, 2014, as the anchorwoman gave details of the separatists’ putative triumph.
“The rebels say they were able to shoot down another transport plane of the Ukrainian Air Force,” she said. “This occurred above the city of Torez in the self-declared Donetsk Republic. It all happened at around 5 p.m. Moscow time. A Ukrainian An-26 was flying, and suddenly it was struck by a missile, an explosion was heard, and the plane began to fall.”
The plane, of course, was not a Ukrainian military aircraft. It was MH17, from whose fuselage thick black smoke was streaming into the summer sky in the amateur footage broadcast by LifeNews.
The segment is part of a patchwork of evidence -- including news reports, social-media posts, and witness accounts -- showing that the Russia-backed separatists initially believed they had shot down an enemy aircraft -- and even boasted about doing so -- before the scale of the tragedy became clear. The victims – adults and children on a routine Boeing 777 flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur -- included citizens of 17 countries.
An international criminal investigation has since concluded that MH17 was shot down by a surface-to-air Buk missile from Russia’s 53rd Antiaircraft Missile Brigade that was fired from territory held by the Russia-backed separatists. Last month, Dutch prosecutors announced murder charges against three Russian nationals and one Ukrainian for their alleged roles in the crime.
Both Russia and the separatist leadership deny involvement in the downing of MH17, despite the compelling evidence presented by Dutch prosecutors.
Here’s a look back at those brief few hours five years ago when the separatists -- in concert with Kremlin-friendly Russian media -- took credit for shooting down the plane that turned out to be MH17.