U.S. Intelligence Assessment Finds That Malaysian Airliner Was Shot Down by Pro-Moscow Ukrainian Separatists

1. July 18, 2014
   
   Michael Birnbaum and Anthony Faiola
   Washington Post, July 18, 2014
   
   KIEV, Ukraine — A preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment indicates that a Malaysia Airlines plane that crashed Thursday in eastern Ukraine was shot down by an antiaircraft missile fired by pro-Russian separatists, U.S. officials said Friday.
   
   President Obama said at least one American was killed in the shootdown, which he said was carried out from an area controlled by Russian-backed separatists. In a news conference at the White House, he noted that the separatists have “received a steady flow of support” from Russia, including heavy weapons, training and antiaircraft systems. He called for “a credible international investigation” into the tragedy and urged Russia to cooperate with it.
   
   Obama identified the U.S. victim as Quinn Lucas Schansman, whom he said was “the sole person we can definitively say was a U.S. or dual citizen” so far based on an examination of the flight manifest. The deaths of the 298 people on the plane “are an outrage of unspeakable proportions,” Obama said.
   
   “Our assessment is that Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 . . . was likely downed by an SA-11 missile, operated from a separatist-held location in eastern Ukraine,” Samantha Power , the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told the U.N. Security Council earlier Friday.
   
   Because of the “technical complexity” of the Russian-made surface-to-air missile system, “it is impossible to rule out Russian technical assistance” to the separatists in operating it, Power said.
   As emergency workers continue to search for victims of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 after it was shot down near the Russian border, world leaders are calling for a cease-fire in Ukraine. (AP)
   
   A U.S. official in Washington cautioned that the intelligence assessment is not final and that analysts are still investigating. The SA-11 is an early version of the Buk antiaircraft system that has been identified by Ukrainian authorities as the weapon used to bring down the airliner.
   
   The assessment that rebels were responsible for the shootdown came as Ukrainian leaders stepped up their condemnation of Russia over the crash, calling for Moscow to be held accountable for allegedly supplying the missile system that they said was used by the rebels in eastern Ukraine.
   
   “This is a crime against humanity,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said, as he called for swift international justice. “All red lines have been already crossed. . . . We ask our international partners to call an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting and to [do] everything we can to stop this war: a war against Ukraine, a war against Europe, and after these terrorists shot down a Malaysian aircraft, this is a war against the world.”
   
   Yatsenyuk added: “Everyone is to be accountable and responsible. I mean everyone who supports these terrorists, including Russians and the Russian regime.”
   
   Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, addressing the nation early Friday, also blamed pro-Russian separatists and those he called their Russian masters for the downing of the Boeing 777 with 298 passengers and crew on board.
   
   The victims included “nearly 100 researchers and advocates” who were en route from Amsterdam via Kuala Lumpur to attend an AIDS conference in Australia, Obama said. “They were taken from us in a senseless act of violence,” he said. AIDS conference organizers have confirmed only seven names and said they think the number of people flying to the conference on the Malaysian flight could be much lower than 100.
   
   “War has gone beyond the territory of Ukraine,” Poroshenko said earlier. “Consequences of this war have already reached the whole world.”
   
   
   
   Russia and the separatists both denied any responsibility for the shootdown, pinning the blame instead on the Ukrainian government.
   
   But Poroshenko said recordings of what the Ukraine Security Service described as intercepted phone conversations between separatist rebels and Russian intelligence officials implicated them in the shootdown.
   
   The Security Service released new recordings Friday in which it said rebels discussed possessing and moving the Russian-made Buk missile launcher that Ukraine says shot down the airliner.
   
   The Ukrainian government released video purporting to show rebels moving a Buk antiaircraft missile system to the Russian border Friday from eastern Ukraine. The government claimed that the missile-launcher was missing one of its missiles. Neither the claims nor the authenticity of the video could be independently verified.
   
   Russia pushed back Friday, accusing Poroshenko of poisoning efforts to investigate the crash.
   
   Addressing the Security Council in New York, Power detailed the amount of weapons and other assistance that Moscow has provided to the separatists.
   
   “Russia can end this war,” she said. “Russia must end this war.”
   
   Among the 298 victims, Power said, were 80 children and three listed on the passenger manifest as infants.
   
   In response, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin did not directly address charges that Moscow bears responsibility and was complicit in the missile attack. Agreeing that an international investigation is needed, Churkin criticized those who he said are “trying to prejudge the outcome with broad statements and insinuations,” and he accused the Ukrainian government of failing to warn international aviation to avoid the conflict area in eastern Ukraine.
   
   “Why did Ukrainian aviation dispatchers send [the Malaysian plane] to an area of strife, where there were antiaircraft systems in operation?” he asked.
   
   By continuing its military offensive to dislodge the separatists, Ukraine “chose the wrong path, and their Western colleagues supported them,” Churkin said. “I’m talking about the United States; they actually pushed them to escalate,” he said, and now “they are trying to lay the blame on Russia.”
   
   Britain, which lost nine citizens in the crash and called for the emergency Security Council meeting, demanded an independent international investigation. “The immediate priority has to be for investigators to gain access to the crash site,” British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said. “There must be no interfering or tampering with the evidence.”
   
   As the council session continued, and before any Russian response, most representatives concentrated on the need for an immediate cease-fire in eastern Ukraine and an independent probe. Many indirectly accused Russia of responsibility for the separatists’ actions, although China cautioned member nations not to “jump to any conclusions . . . or trade accusations.”
   
   Separately, the leaders of Germany, France and Britain expressed outrage Friday over the downing of the airliner but were also careful not to publicly accuse Russia. Countries in the region considered more hawkish on Russia, however, were more willing to assign blame.
   
   “We are concerned over press reports that the Ukrainian side has captured phone conversation recordings indicating that pro-Russian separatists might be responsible for shooting the plane down,” the Polish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
   
   In eastern Ukraine, pro-Russian separatists pledged safe access for investigators seeking to enter the crash zone, international monitors in the region said, but the Ukrainian government said the rebels were still keeping all but local emergency workers away from the site.
   
   The rebels are ready to move bodies of the victims of the Malaysian airline crash to a laboratory in Kharkiv, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported. It quoted Oleksandr Borodai, a leader among the separatists in Donetsk, as saying that the rebels “do not have sufficient refrigerators to store the victims’ bodies.”
   
   So far, the official Ukrainian emergency agency working in Donetsk has found 182 bodies, according to Interfax.
   
   By midafternoon Friday, Ukrainian authorities were in possession of one black-box data recorder that could offer information about the final moments of the flight, said Konstantin Batozsky, an adviser to the Donetsk regional governor, Serhiy Taruta. He said he did not have exact information about where the recorder was recovered. Rebels told Ukrainian authorities earlier that they had at least one other recorder, Batozsky said, but government officials have not actually seen the second recorder.
   
   A rebel leader on Thursday had briefly claimed responsibility for downing a plane that he described as a Ukrainian military aircraft. Soon after it was established that a commercial airliner had been shot down, the claim was removed.
   
   The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Vienna-based body coordinating a dialogue in the conflict, said talks through video conference had yielded security guarantees and that an international team was expected to enter the area later Friday or Saturday morning. But there were conflicting reports on whether rebels truly intended to grant access to the site to more than emergency workers.
   
   “We are ready to let the international commission into our territory to look into the tragedy more thoroughly and properly,” Denis Pushilin, a rebel leader, told the ITAR-TASS news agency.“This is in our interests, as we do not feel guilty.”
   
   Andriy Purgin, another leader of the rebels’ self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, told Interfax Friday morning that separatists were ready to call a truce for two to four days to allow Boeing officials and international experts to have unhampered access to the plane crash site. Purgin also told Interfax that rebels would be meeting to discuss that truce with representatives of the OSCE and the Russian and Ukrainian governments.
   
   Rebels have “allowed our emergency access, but it’s not sufficient,” said Batozsky, the adviser to the Donetsk governor. He said no Ukrainian central government representatives have been able to gain access to the crash scene and that only local representatives from the Donetsk regional government were currently present. They totaled roughly 30 regional police officers, 150 officials from the Donetsk office of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine and two or three regional prosecutors, Batozsky said.
   
   The Ukrainian government is trying to negotiate a secure access road so that rescue and investigative services can get there, he said.
   
   “We don’t know yet how we will get all these vehicles there,” Batozsky said. He said discussions with rebels over a cease-fire were being made more difficult because the rebels did not appear to be united on how they wanted to proceed. “Strelkov, he rejected the idea,” he said, referring top rebel military leader Igor Girkin, also known as Igor Strelkov, “while the so-called Prime Minister [Alexander] Borodai hasn’t rejected it.”
   
   Ukraine’s top intelligence official said Friday that the plane crash was being investigated as a criminal case under Ukraine’s terrorism laws.
   
   Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, head of the Ukraine Security Service, said Ukraine now believes that the Boeing 777 was shot down by rebel forces using a Buk antiaircraft missile launcher that had recently been moved over the border from Russia. He said Ukraine has detained two Russian citizens who allegedly helped bring the missile launcher into Ukraine. Ukrainian intelligence services also observed rebels trying to move back into Russia a Buk launcher that had fired two missiles, he added. It was not immediately possible to independently verify the claims.
   
   “The terrorists are trying to hide the crime,” Nalyvaichenko said.
   
   The Ukraine Security Service on Friday released a second series of recordings of what it said were intercepted phone calls between pro-Russian separatists over the last few days, in which the voices describe being in possession of and moving the Buk missile launcher.
   
   In the first conversation, which the Security Service said took place on July 14, an alleged rebel called “Oleg” said he missed a plane flying above a village. “We already have the Buk,” a woman identified as “Oreon” told him. “We’ll be knocking it down.”
   
   The Security Service said that on additional tapes from July 17, rebels discuss moving the Buk launcher.
   
   “Where do we ship this beauty to, Nikolayevich?” asked an alleged rebel identified by the Security Service as “Buryat.”
   
   “It’s not necessary to hide it anywhere,” came the reply.
   
   The rebel identified as Nikolayevich, also known as “Khmuri,” also talked about stocks of other weapons and the rebels’ relationship with the Russians at one point.
   
   “The thing is, we have Grads, but no spotters,” he said, referring to the mobile, Russian-made multiple rocket launcher. “We are waiting. Supposedly Russia should strike from that side at their positions.”
   
   In recent months, the rebels have shot down numerous Ukrainian military aircraft using short-range surface-to-air missiles. Experts said such missiles probably could not reach a plane flying at 33,000 feet, the reported altitude of Flight 17. But Ukrainian authorities have said the rebels recently obtained Russian-madeBuk surface-to-air missiles — a complex system using ground radar to guide a missile to its target. Experts said it requires expertise and training to operate.
   
   In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday that the international community could not expect Russia to get the pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine to lay down their arms.
   
   But Lavrov said he hoped that the OSCE would send monitors to the Russian-Ukrainian border before the end of the week. In an interview with Rossiya-24 television, he added that Russia was ready to guarantee the safety of those observers at Russia’s own border checkpoints but could make no promises about keeping them safe from bombardments from Ukraine, Interfax reported.
   
   Lavrov also accused Poroshenko of potentially poisoning the investigation of the plane crash by calling for a commission to look into it while also declaring it an act of terrorism.
   
   “Of course, attempts to claim that this was a terrorist act, so the Ukrainian researchers will be guided by this in their work — this is unacceptable, this pressure on the acts of the this commission,” Lavrov said.
   
   In an effort to cooperate with international investigations, Lavrov said, Russia would not accept the black box that rebels said they had recovered from the plane.
   
   “We are not going to take away these boxes,” he said. “We are not going to violate the rules existing with regard to this sort of cases within the international community.”
   
   Aleksey Komarov, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, called for “a thorough investigation with the use of representatives from all the interested international organizations.”
   
   He alleged that, according to the information available to the Russians, a Ukrainian military Buk-M1 type air defense system capable of bringing down the jet as it cruised at 33,000 feet was stationed in the area near the crash.
   
   “Ukrainian Air Force planes armed with various types of missiles are constantly present in the Donetsk region airspace,” he said on Rossiya 24 TV. “This is an indisputable fact.” He said Kiev’s claims that these systems or planes did not shoot at airborne targets “raise serious doubts.” He added that “planes of the Russian Air Force did not fly in Russian regions bordering the Donetsk region on July 17, 2014.”
   
   The Ukrainians, however, have cited the purported intercepts and conflicting claims by the pro-Russian rebels, who have been operating with tactical Russian assistance, as evidence of their guilt. In recent days, the rebels, who have shot down numerous Ukrainian military aircraft using shorter-range missiles, claimed to have obtained more advanced antiaircraft missile systems.
   
   “Evidence and information we have as of now confirm that it was pro-Russian groups, and unfortunately this tragedy took the lives of 298 people,” Ihor Dolhov, Ukraine’s ambassador to NATO, told the BBC.
   
   Sergei Kavtaradze, a representative of the separatist militias, told Interfax on Friday that the purported recordings of intercepted phone calls, in which Ukrainian officials say pro-Russian rebels admit shooting down the Malaysian airliner, amounted to “unprofessional propaganda.”
   
   Ukrainian authorities again insisted Friday that their forces could not have hit the Malaysia Airlines flight.
   
   When the plane disappeared from radar at 4:20 p.m. on Thursday, “Ukrainian fighter jets were not flying in the airspace, and the plane was outside the space of possible destruction by antiaircraft forces of Ukraine,” Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the Information Analysis Center of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, told a briefing in Kiev.
   
   “We have checked all the missiles in the Ukraine armed forces. They are intact,” he said.
   
   Lysenko also played what he said was a recording of a Russian MiG-29 fighter jet communicating with ground control on Wednesday as it locked a targeted missile on a Ukrainian fighter jet. The Ukrainian fighter jet was hit in one engine, and the pilot was not killed, he said. It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the recording.
   
   He said the Ukrainian government had set up a special investigation committee and that it had invited U.S., Dutch and Malaysian officials to join it.
   
   “Unfortunately, the whole tragedy happened in the territory which is currently under the authority of the militants,” Lysenko said. “They are doing everything so that the investigation is not objective. They are hampering it.”
   
   “We cannot talk about any final results of the investigation, or the beginning of the investigation. We, the Ukrainian authorities, are doing everything that we can so that international experts can visit this area,” Lysenko said.
   
   In the fast-moving situation, Ukrainian authorities in Kiev appeared uncertain about how much access they had to the crash scene minute by minute, but they said they are nevertheless making plans to accommodate victims’ families in the city of Kharkiv.
   
   “One hundred eighty-one bodies have been discovered. The terrorists are exercising opposition, but despite that, the rescue services are operating there at the location,” Andrii Sybiga, director of consular services of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, told reporters in Kiev, without offering more details about what problems the authorities were experiencing.
   
   “The bodies will be moved to Kharkiv, where a special laboratory will be identifying the bodies,” he said. However, he did not say that the rebels who control the territory had agreed to the plan. He said special accommodations were being prepared for the families of victims in Kharkiv, where they would be allowed to stay for free and where visas would be expedited.
   
   Rescue workers granted safe passage to the crash site by the rebels told the Agence France-Presse news service Thursday that they had found one of the jet’s black boxes. Rebels claimed to have found at least one other Thursday and vowed to ship it to Moscow for analysis.
   
   Images capturing what appeared to be the explosion showed a massive cloud of smoke in the air as the plane was hit about 4:21 p.m. local time. Blurred lines of debris rained down on the ground. Rescue workers sprayed water over the smoldering remains, which landed in a rural patch of eastern Ukraine. There, the crash site appeared to be a ghastly scene of twisted metal and bodies splayed out in an ashen tableau.
   
   In Amsterdam, an audible gasp went up at a news conference Thursday night at Schiphol airport when it was announced that 154 Dutch passengers had been on board Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. The airline’s senior vice president, Huib Gorter, read out a list of passenger nationalities that included 27 Australians as the next-largest group. The airplane’s 15 crew members were Malaysian, as were 28 passengers. The nationalities of 41 passengers had not been established at the time.
   
   Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said “a number of passengers” were traveling to the 20th annual International AIDS Conference in Melbourne beginning Sunday, and some of the world’s foremost researchers were thought to have been on the flight. The dramatic loss of yet another Malaysia Airlines flight, after the mysterious disappearance of the same carrier’s Flight 370 in March, sparked a familiar chain of tragedy across the globe, with distraught family members shuttled to impromptu emergency centers in Asia and Europe.
   
   Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak demanded a full, independent investigation and said the United States had offered its assistance. A number of world leaders called for an international investigation, with Britain proposing a United Nations-led probe.
   
   “This is a tragic day in what has already been a tragic year for Malaysia,” Najib said.
   
   The Russian-led International Aviation Committee, which has authority to investigate plane crashes in many former Soviet countries but more limited reach in Ukraine, also threw its support Friday behind an international investigative commission, formed under the oversight of the International Civil Aviation Organization, according to Interfax.
   
   But in televised comments Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin put the blame for the Malaysia Airlines crash squarely on Ukraine.
   
   “Certainly the state over whose territory this happened bears responsibility for this terrible tragedy,” Putin said at a meeting with advisers, at which a moment of silence for the victims was televised. “This tragedy would not have happened if there was peace in this land.”