The Russian Defense
Ministry has presented an audio recording proving Ukraine’s complicity in the
MH17 disaster in 2014, the Defense Ministry’s spokesman Igor Konashenkov told
the media.
MOSCOW, September 17.
/TASS/. Russian Defense Ministry has figured out that videos showing the
movement of a Buk missile system from Russia to Ukraine, presented by the Joint
Investigation Team (JIT) looking into the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 crash
in eastern Ukraine, were fabricated, ministry spokesman Major General Igor
Konashenkov told reporters.
According to him,
Russian experts thoroughly studied those videos and came to the conclusion that
they had been fabricated.
The Russian Defense
Ministry has held a press conference dedicated to the MH17 crash, presenting a
detailed analysis of those videos and proof of their being fabricated.
The Russian Defense
Ministry has presented an audio recording proving Ukraine’s complicity in the
MH17 disaster in 2014, the Defense Ministry’s spokesman Igor Konashenkov told
the media.
General Konashenkov
said the audio recording of a conversation between Ukrainian military
servicemen was made back in 2016 in the Odessa Region during the Rubezh-2016
exercise and published in the Ukrainian mass media.
"If so, we’ll …
[a synonym of the verb ‘shoot down’ - TASS] another Malaysian Boeing," one
of the Ukrainian military servicemen said in the conversation.
The missile
The missile which
downed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was made in the town of Dolgoprudny
outside Moscow in 1986, delivered to a military unit deployed to Ukraine and
was never brought back to Russia, Chief of the Russian Defense Ministry’s
Missile and Artillery Department Lieutenant General Nikolai Parshin told
reporters.
According to him, the
missile fragments presented by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) looking into
the MH17 crash carried the numbers of the missile’s nozzle and engine.
"Once we had the noozle and engine numbers, we were able to find out the
missile’s number," he said.
"There are
documents in the archives of the Dolgoprudny Research Institute, which made it
possible to find out the missile’s tail number. It came out that the missile
was assembled on December 24, 1986, and delivered by rail to the military unit
number 20/152, officially named the 223rd Air Defense Missile Brigade. It was
deployed to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic’s Ternopol Region, which
was part of the Subcarpathian Military District," he added.
According to the
general, the military unit was never withdrawn to Russia.
MH17 crash
The Malaysia Airlines
Flight MH17, a Boeing-777 passenger plane travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala
Lumpur, was shot down on July 17, 2014, over Ukraine’s eastern region of
Donetsk. The crash killed all the 283 passengers and 15 crewmembers. There were
nationals of ten states among the dead. The Joint Investigation Team (JIT)
looking into the crash comprises representatives of the Netherlands, Australia,
Belgium, Malaysia and Ukraine.
On May 24, the Team
gave an update of the state of affairs in the criminal investigation, claiming
that "the BUK-TELAR that was used to down MH17, originates from the 53rd
Anti-Aircraft Missile brigade... a unit of the Russian army from Kursk in the
Russian Federation."
Russia’s Defense
Ministry rejected all the allegations and said that none of the missile systems
belonging to the Russian Armed Forces had ever been taken abroad.
Nevertheless, on May
25, Australia and the Netherlands issued a statement saying that they
"hold Russia responsible for its part in the downing of flight MH17."
The two countries called on Russia to hold talks in order to find an
appropriate solution and warned that the case could be submitted to an
international court or organization.
Source: ITAR-TASS
17-09-2018
