In this post I will try to summarise the main facts about the MH17 investigation to date, for the benefit of people who don’t want to wade through pages of evidence, much of which is incomplete and complicated.
1. The evidence suggests MH17 was downed by a BUK surface to air missile.
2. The missile launch site isn’t certain but there is a good chance it is south of Shizhne.
3) The BUK could have been launched by pro-Russian or pro-Kiev forces.
4) The most likely scenarios are a mistake by the rebels or a false flag operation by a group of pro-Kiev operatives.
5) The Ukrainian Security Service claim that the downing was a false flag operation to give Russia a reason to go to war is not credible.
6) We know one BUK on a trailer travelled from Donetsk to Snizhne on the day of the downing, but it wasn’t necessarily this BUK which downed MH17. The Ukrainian Interior Minister published footage of a very similar trailer with a BUK with missile missing, which he claimed was filmed in Krasnodon, near the RUssian border. In fact it was filmed in Lugansk, in what it appears was an area held by pro-Kiev forces.
7) Even if it was this BUK, it is not certain this BUK was controlled by the rebels or by Ukrainian forces.
8) It is certain that the Ukrainian Security Services (SBU) have repeatedly published false information to implicate Russia in the downing.
9) The SBU intercepts show the rebels communications have been severely compromised so rebel operations are subject to manipulation (giving false orders, infiltration of agents etc), which is going to make ascertaining responsibility for firing the missile very difficult.
10) Regarding Russia’s alleged participation in providing the BUK, providing the crew or allowing the BUK to travel to Russia after the downing, no concrete evidence of this has been provided by any party.
11) The Ukrainian authorities should have closed their air space to civilian air traffic on the 14th (when they say they intercepted a rebel claim to have a BUK) or on the 15th at latest when they closed down the airspace for military aircraft (other than a bombing raid on Snizhne).
12) Western political leaders bear a heavy burden of responsibility for allowing the Ukrainians to bomb civilians in the east of Ukraine with impunity.
(Update 9/8/2014)
(Update 7/8/2014 with information based on uamaps.com)
Human rights investigations 
7 replies on “MH17 Investigation – What we know”
Also take a look at this report by an American aviation expert: MH17 Analysis Parts 1 and 2.
Hi Keld – I read through that and wasn’t convinced. It isn’t certain exactly where the plane was hit & we need good evidence for the distance from there to the debris field. Seems to me it could be 7km+ and Snizhne is still well within range.
[…] What we know about the MH17 crash to date from open source data is here. […]
I do not see the evidence that suggests a BUK missile was fired.
What I see is a theatrical train of events and pictures that might
allow imagination to create a BUK theory.
There is no BUK plume record or account except for that provided by the SBU.
This is very problematic.
There are eyewitnesses and radar records that suggest military aircraft
were in the vicinity of the event.
The intercepted audio transcripts are, according to Russian officials, manipulated.
This claim could be independently forensically examined but I am
not aware this has happened. You have to ask why?
Even the “tricky” Spanish tweets established the BUK story in the imagination
of that target audience of this “information”.
HRI seems to focus on the BUK despite the above.
Its true we are concentrating on the BUK. The plane was obviously shot down and the BUK is the most likely culprit. It is hard to see why anyone would shoot it down with an aircraft, even if they could manage it, which would be difficult. If anyone wanted to organise a false flag operation, using a BUK in one way or another would be by far the best option.
It is highly likely the Dutch Safety Board will publish a report in about two weeks time, saying MH17 was brought down by a missile fired by a BUK launcher. What they won’t know is who launched it and why and who was involved and that is what we are focusing on trying to discover. A lot of the media has made their mind up already on very scant evidence, but there are a large number of different scenarios which fit the known facts at this point in time.
Mark, if no one has evidence of a plume beyond the single SBU released
item which has to be judged as suspect then what facts support a BUK scenario.
The lack of independent plume evidence is important.
The guilty BUK “meets the media” incident is unusual to say the least.
How silly to stop for a media photo session then tell the media, “don’t keep photos”.
This is similar to the 911 actors frequenting bars and conducting pilot training.
Every political flavor has been fed a BUK story to suit it’s bias.
Why not get a forensic analysis of the intercepted audio to judge if Russia or
SBU is correct?
The delay in providing the Black Box recorder data and the ATC record
naturally draws speculation the fix is still being constructed while those
who frame the official narrative check what reports come forth from
the public that might be problematic and need drowning in “tricky business”.
Would the Dutch investigation team be certain exactly what evidence Russia
might be holding to keep in front of the information war.
I agree the official story will be delayed in thick fog.
The propaganda impact against Russia is set in concrete.
Hopefully the Dutch will be pro-active and ask the SBU for the full versions of these alleged conversations. I’m not sure if Russia, USA and Ukraine will be providing the investigation team with a lot more info behind the scenes. If not the Dutch should demand it.