As you probably know, Bellingcat issued new reports on MH17 today and RFE/RL's news desk has been taking a look:
Cybersleuths Say Convoy Movements Show Link To MH17 Plane Crash
A team of open-source researchers investigating the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 has published reports linking the movements of Russian military equipment to the plane’s downing.
The reports, released on June 5 by Bellingcat, track the locations of vehicles including the Buk missile launcher that the British-based research group says was involved in the July 2014 downing of MH17.
Focusing on information gleaned from drivers, Bellingcat published censored photos of drivers and the convoys of trucks that it alleges moved the equipment into place in the weeks before the airliner crashed during a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, killing all 298 passengers and crew.
"An uncensored version of the report including full names and uncensored photographs has been shared with the MH17 Joint Investigation Team (JIT)," Bellingcat said, referring to the international team that has investigated the crash.
Belligcat's previous reports had already identified Russia’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade as being the likely source of the missile that investigators say brought down the jet.
But the new reports add to a growing body of circumstantial evidence suggesting Russian complicity. This includes personal information about Russian military officers and enlisted soldiers who Bellingcat alleges specifically knew of, and possibly even manned, the Buk-M1 surface-to-air missile system believed to have brought down MH17.
International media, including the Associated Press, have pinpointed Buk-M1 systems in the eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne on the day of the plane’s downing, and accompanying soldiers who spoke with accents that seemed to be from Moscow and other regions in Russia.
Russian Denials, Alternate Theories
Russia has strenuously denied the fighters it supports in eastern Ukraine were responsible or that it supplied the missile system. A leading separatist commander initially appeared to take credit for firing a missile and downing a Ukrainian jet, but those claims on social media were later removed.
Russian officials have also put forth myriad alternate theories, including claims that MH17 was downed by a missile fired from a Ukrainian fighter jet, in what Kremlin critics say is a disinformation campaign aimed to muddy the waters.
The 298 victims of the MH17 crash, many of whom were Dutch, are among at least 9,900 people the UN says have been killed since the conflict between the Russia-backed separatists and Kyiv's forces began in eastern Ukraine in April 2014.
The conflict broke out as Russia, which seized Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March 2014, was fomenting separatism across eastern and southern Ukraine after Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych fled to Russia in the face of protests.
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council:
Russian Court Convicts Ukrainian Library Chief Of Inciting Hatred
By RFE/RL
A Russian court has convicted the former director of Moscow's Ukrainian Literature Library of inciting hatred in a ruling that Amnesty International said displayed "utter contempt for the rule of law."
In a June 5 verdict that followed a closely watched trial, the Meshchansky District Court also found Natalya Sharina guilty of embezzlement and handed her a four-year suspended sentence.
The hate-crime charge against the 59-year-old librarian stemmed from the Russian state's claim that her library's collection included books that are banned in Russia as extremist, including works by Ukrainian ultranationalist Dmytro Korchynskiy. Police have have been accused of planting some of the banned books at the state-run library.
The case was steeped in the confrontation between Russia and Ukraine, whose historically close ties have been torn apart by Moscow's seizure of Crimea and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Sharina was detained in October 2015 amid growing animus between Moscow and Kyiv over Russia's illegal annexation of the Black Sea peninsula and its involvement in the war in eastern Ukraine, which has killed more than 9,900 people.
In April 2016, investigators additionally charged her with embezzlement, claiming that she used library funds to pay for her legal defense in a separate extremism case against her that was dismissed in 2013.
Her lawyer said the authorities had "trumped up" the new charges after realizing their initial case against Sharina was too weak.
Sharina, who was under pretrial house arrest for most of the time after she was detained, has rejected all the allegations as politically motivated. The respected Russian human rights group Memorial considered her a political prisoner.
"This highly politicized case runs totally counter to justice and highlights serious flaws in the independence of Russia’s judiciary. Natalya Sharina should not have been prosecuted, still less convicted," Denis Krivosheev, deputy director for Europe and Central Asia at Amnesty International, said following the verdict.
"The prosecution has exploited the highly charged anti-Ukrainian atmosphere that is prevalent in Russia at the moment, while the court simply dismissed key evidence for the defense, including testimonies that police officers were seen planting the banned books at the library," an Amnesty statement quoted him as saying.
On May 29, the state prosecutor asked the judge to find Sharina guilty and give her a five-year suspended sentence.
With reporting by RFE/RL's Russian Service, Rapsinews, TASS, and Interfax
Blockaders Threaten New Battle In Ukraine’s East
After forcing Kyiv’s hand once, Ukrainian nationalists and other activists blockading eastern parts of the country say they are preparing a new "action" in an attempt to influence Kyiv's conflict with Russia-backed separatists.
