Eastern Europe: Olivier's sphere of influence

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Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

A new BBC documentary I'm part of is out soon:

quote:

The Conspiracy Files: Who Shot Down MH17?

On 17 July 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, crashed, killing 298 passengers in the worst air disaster for two decades.
Alarmingly, the devastating crash occurred just four months after the mysterious disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370. Is this just a coincidence? The cause of the crash has been focus of a host of conspiracy theories, many of which involve Russia, Ukraine and the CIA.

The official investigation report into MH17 flight argues that only a powerful ground-to-air missile could be responsible. Yet, there are eyewitness accounts of other aircrafts seen flying next to MH17 close to impact. To further fuel the conspiracies, Russia and Ukraine blame each other but both countries are unable to provide all the critical radar data from that day.

Family members do not trust the official explanations and there is a long way to go to bring about justice for the victims. This programme tracks down eye witnesses, and speaks with secret intelligence sources to try to sort fact from fiction. Don�t miss this compelling Conspiracy Files unfold to see whether the mystery can be unravelled.

Part of it will be Bellingcat's claims being put up against various counter claims from the likes of representatives of RT and Consortium News. It's an hour long, and there will be some new material in it.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2016 14:13

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 21:41

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

The Russian MFA replied to the letter I wrote to them, here's the full story to save you clicking this link

On April 6th 2016 Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova made the following statement about Bellingcat:

quote:

Bellingcat as an instrument to divert attention from investigating the tragedy of the Malaysian Boeing over Ukraine

We took note of an interview with Bellingcat representatives for the BBC in which they sarcastically spoke about some �trolling� on the part of the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Ministry of Russia, for allegedly attacking them.

I would simply like to recall that we do not attack anyone, but rather, give our unbiased assessment of the work of both this group and those who use its materials as reliable information.

We understand the purpose of this group�s activities. Acting jointly with the current Ukrainian authorities, they continue to use all possible �fakes,� to create quasi-evidence to blame Russia. Why do we take this position and on what is it based? Even now the commission (investigating the circumstances of the Boeing tragedy over the territory of Ukraine) prefers to ignore Russia�s reasoning, which is corroborated by facts and evidence, in particular by tests and experiments. The commission ignores it to the extent that it makes no reply to this reasoning, while at the same time passing off these �fakes� for the hundredth time as proof or integrated evidence, even when this information has been debunked, and not only by Russia.

At present, we have information,that leads us to believe that loyal and handy witnesses in this case are being selected and presumably trained. This begs the question: why is all this being done? The aim is once again to give the global community fabricated proof of Russia�s aggression. This seems blasphemous in this case, because people died there and their families want to know the truth. One may endlessly combine all these invented stories and collect evidence allegedly found on social media sites and at the same time ignore the results of experiments, including those provided by Russia. All this can be done only if you neglect to consider one thing: this case is not just an information campaign, it involves human lives, the destinies of the victims� families, who definitely want to know the truth.

The opening of the statement appears to refer to the BBC article Twitter�s role in modern warfare in which Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins is featured:

quote:

Eliot Higgins, the founder of Bellingcat, a company that crowdsources information about the Syrian and Ukrainian conflicts, found himself a target, particularly over Bellingcat�s investigation identifying the missile launcher said to be responsible for shooting down flight MH17.

�I started off by posting a lot on the Guardian live blog comments before I started my own blogs and some of the people from that followed me on to Twitter and still disagree with me strongly and vocally there up until today, five years later,� he says.

�What�s been interesting for me is having this Syria community of trolls and the community of pro-Russian trolls that built up around MH17 and my work, now coming together after Russia�s involvement in Syria. It�s nice to bring people together, even when it�s in their mutual and obsessive hatred of one person.

�Recently we�ve even had the Russian Ministry of Defence and Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs putting out statements attacking Bellingcat. They seem to be basing it on what the trolls are saying,� he adds.

Bellingcat was concerned about the allegations made by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the statement, and contacted the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, along with the Russian Defence Ministry, which has made similar allegations, with the following message:

quote:

Dear Sir or Madam,

Both the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defense have accused Bellingcat of preparing �open falsifications,� passing off �fakes,� using �faked posts,� and making �pseudo-hypotheses.� Bellingcat has never created fake information, and has never included �faked posts� as evidence in its investigations. After months of false accusations in official press conferences, we request that the government of the Russian Federation provide specific examples of the �fakes� and false evidence that are supposedly published by Bellingcat.

Additionally, on April 6, the spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused Bellingcat of �acting jointly with the current Ukrainian authorities.� Bellingcat has never acted jointly with any body of the Ukrainian government. We request any proof held by the government of the Russian Federation that Bellin gcat has cooperated with the Ukrainian�or any other�government in its research or publications.

The government of the Russian Federation seems very concerned with providing an �unbiased assessment,� in the words of spokesperson Zakharova, of the work of Bellingcat. We request concrete proof to support its accusations.

Yours sincerely,

Eliot Higgins, Bellingcat

On April 14th the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has replied with the following (translated from Russian):

quote:

Dear Mr. Higgins,

In your letter, you claim that at the April 6 briefing the MFA�s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova allegedly accused the website you head of cooperation with Ukrainian authorities. However, when she mentioned a group cooperating with the current Ukrainian Authorities, Maria Zakharova did not refer to Bellingcat, but to the Joint Investigation Team investigating the MH17 tragedy in the skies over Ukraine. This investigation team does cooperate with Ukrainian authorities, but instead of analyzing Russian evidence, substantiated and proven by experiments, such as the Russian Ministry of Defense data, which is, by the way, publicly available, prefers to ignore it and repeatedly refers to unproven and in some cases simply ridiculous Bellingcat �stories�.

It is well known that Bellingcat �expert assessments� has been called into question even by the Western media due to them being unproven and lacking confirmed factual material. You can check it by yourself by googling in the �world wide web�, especially since you consider yourself an Internet search professional.

However, even if we suppose Maria Zakharova did state you cooperated with Kiev, it is surprising that you regard a connection with Ukrainian authorities as an offense, given that some of the most cited sources in Bellingcat reports are information disseminated precisely by Ukrainian state agencies. One example is the official YouTube channel of the Security Service of Ukraine. However, you never use information provided by other sides in your research, which is what leads one to suspecting you of bias.

Kind regards,

Information and Press Department of the Russian MFA

Bellingcat has replied, again asking for evidence of Russia�s accusations:

quote:

Dear Sir/Madam,

We note, as with your earlier statements on Bellingcat, you yet again fail to provide any specific examples of fakery by Bellingcat, despite our earlier email making several requests for those examples. Despite our best efforts, our searches have discovered no such article in any recognised �Western media�, so we would appreciate you providing specific references in reply to this email. I�m sure the Russian Foreign Ministry is not in the habit of making libellous claims about organisations it cannot back up with firm evidence, so we await with great interest the evidence of Bellingcat�s fakery that you will provide in your reply.

Regarding the claims Bellingcat is working with Ukrainian authorities, if this was a misreading of the statement published by the Russian Foreign Ministry then we apologise. Having reread the statement it is clear there is only one way this could be read in light of your reply. As a reminder, here�s the text again:

We took note of an interview with Bellingcat representatives for the BBC in which they sarcastically spoke about some �trolling� on the part of the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Ministry of Russia, for allegedly attacking them.

I would simply like to recall that we do not attack anyone, but rather, give our unbiased assessment of the work of both this group and those who use its materials as reliable information.

We understand the purpose of this group�s activities. Acting jointly with the current Ukrainian authorities, they continue to use all possible �fakes,� to create quasi-evidence to blame Russia.

For perfect clarity about these remarks in light of your reply, can you confirm this statement, which you reply appears to state is referring to the JIT, is definitely referring to the JIT:

Acting jointly with the current Ukrainian authorities, they continue to use all possible �fakes,� to create quasi-evidence to blame Russia.

If that is the case, is the Russian government planning to present evidence of the JIT using fakes, and details of the �quasi-evidence� they�ve created using these fakes? If the Russian government does have such evidence of clear manipulation by the JIT then I�m sure the public in Russia, the Netherlands, and elsewhere would be extremely interested in seeing your evidence, so I would strongly urge you to publish such evidence.

Regarding your comment on your perception that we were insulted by what we believed was your claim we were working with the Ukraine authorities to �use all possible �fakes,� to create quasi-evidence to blame Russia� (which you now seem to be saying was a reference to the JIT) I believe you may have mistaken our reaction. We were merely noting that the Russian Foreign Ministry would make a statement with no basis in fact, and with no evidence to support the claim, and curious to see what evidence the Russian Foreign Ministry had to make such claims. However, if you�re now saying it was the JIT using �all possible �fakes,� to create quasi-evidence to blame Russia� we look forward to publication of evidence the Russian government has to support these allegations.

Your final comments refers to your perceived bias in our work as we, as you put it, �never use information provided by other sides in your research�. We have in fact examined all the evidence presented by the Russian Defence Ministry, in particular the July 21st 2014 press conference on MH17. However, when we attempted to verify the claims it became quickly apparent the Russian Defence Ministry had lied repeatedly about the evidence it presented. We have evidenced this at length (we find providing evidence is a powerful and compelling methodology) and we have been told by numerous journalists that their attempts to get comments from the Russian Defence Ministry on our accusations have been met with no response. Is this a subject the Russian Foreign Ministry would be willing to comment on?

Kind regards

Eliot Higgins

As before, we await their reply, and their evidence.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2016 21:23

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

NAT-T Ice posted:

Do you expect them to actually respond with anything other than nonsense?

I didn't expect them to respond in the first place so anything is a bonus.

Also note in their they make some pretty serious allegations about the official JIT investigation, so that's something.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2016 21:41

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

NAT-T Ice posted:

In other news, my internet poo poo the bed last night so I didn't get to play the Putin Direct Line drinking game. Did I miss anything of note? Scraps from social media indicate there were questions about Putin's favorite type of kasha. I am quite eager to know.

A 12 year old asked this question

https://twitter.com/KremlinRussia_E/status/720611799133986817

# ¿ Apr 14, 2016 22:05

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

The BBC documentary I'm in on MH17 is out on May 3rd, on BBC Two, details here. I believe I get put against claims made by RT and Consortium News, plus others, so that should be fun.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2016 13:10

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs replied to my second email to them with their evidence of MH17 fakes. I'll be publishing it in full later with our reply, but here's a preview

https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/723256602590097408

# ¿ Apr 22, 2016 08:37

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Brown Moses posted:

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs replied to my second email to them with their evidence of MH17 fakes. I'll be publishing it in full later with our reply, but here's a preview

https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/723256602590097408

So while working on our response to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs' email it's become apparent their "evidence" is plagiarised from a Livejournal, going as far as lifting entire paragraphs.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2016 14:14

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Paladinus posted:

Hey, that's not fair. You gather evidence in social networks all the time!

I genuinely think that could be their reply.`

# ¿ Apr 22, 2016 14:21

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Paladinus posted:

I suspect the ministry got a hefty amount of money to counter enemy propaganda, but instead it's just one unpaid intern browsing hashtags and copypasting stuff from livejournal.

We actually know exactly who wrote it because they sent it in a Word document and didn't strip their metadata. We've already found their Facebook pages, confirming they work for the Russian MFA. Here's an example of their plagiarism:

quote:

В качестве доказательств - десятки фотографий из социальных сетей, на которых изображены какие-то солдаты с размытыми лицами, боевой техники с плохо читаемыми бортовыми номерами, к тому же непонятно где находящейся

quote:

В качестве доказательств � десятки фотографий из социальных сетей, на которых изображены какие-то солдаты с размытыми лицами, боевая техника с плохо читаемыми бортовыми номерами, к тому же непонятно где находящаяся

Exactly the same, except one uses "�" and the other "-".

# ¿ Apr 22, 2016 14:30

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Here's the evidence of their plagiarism
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2016/04/22/mfa-plagiarism/

And the letter (and our reply) itself
https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/articles/2016/04/22/the-russian-ministry-of-foreign-affairs-presents-its-evidence-of-mh17-fakery/

# ¿ Apr 22, 2016 16:22

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

In another "Bellingcat annoys Russia" news, recently an old video of me talking about our work on Russia shelling Ukraine from inside Russia was reuploaded with Russian subtitles, which then went viral in Ukraine, even though the work was originally published a year ago. Now the Ukrainian government has submitted it to the OSCE
http://mfa.gov.ua/en/news-feeds/for...upovanomu-krimu

quote:

The documented evidence of direct Russian military intervention in Donbas continues to be strengthened by additional findings. We draw attention to the recent report by the investigative journalist organization Bellingcat, examining in-depth different sources to determine the origin of artillery fire on the Ukrainian military units, deployed near the Ukrainian-Russian border in summer 2014. Evidence attached to the report, including satellite imagery, video files and witnesses’ accounts, allowed to conclude that Russia had used MLRS “Grad” to shell the Ukrainian forces more than 300 times from its territory

What's particularly helpful is one of the prosecution witnesses in the Savchenko trial used the same methodology to show Ukraine had shelled Russia, going as far as to call it the Bellingcat method, and his evidence was praised by the judge, so we even have Russian court's seal of approval on the methodology.

# ¿ Apr 23, 2016 07:30

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

kalstrams posted:

They'll soon be able to paradrop people who use their own mouth as a step.

The thing is, I know there's already one MH17 civil case in the works that will use Russia's attacks on Ukraine as part of the case, so it's very helpful to them that a Russian court accepts and even praises the use of the same methodology used to show Russian was shelling Ukraine. Then you have the Russian government who spends months claiming MH17 evidence is fake, and when they present their proof its plagiarised from a Livejournal. They're a bunch of clowns.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2016 07:24

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

After some terrible reporting in the Daily Express about the upcoming BBC documentary that claimed it showed Ukraine shot down MH17 with a jet, the BBC has published details of the documentary (which I feature in), long piece, but here's a few highlights

quote:

Conspiracy Files: Who shot down MH17?

Fighter jet theory I

As the theory that MH17 was shot down by a plane not a ground-to-air missile swept across the internet, Billy Six, a freelance journalist from Berlin, joined the hunt for clues.

He spent four months in Ukraine and interviewed more than 100 people in the rebel-controlled area around the crash site. Seven people told him they saw a fighter jet on the day MH17 crashed, and one said he saw a missile being launched from a plane. Billy himself thinks two fighter jets shot down MH17 - one firing its cannon, the other firing a missile.

The first photographer on the scene, Oleg Vitulkin, a member of the pro-Russian militia, rejects the Western account. "There's no way that we would have launched this missile as everyone would have seen it," he says.

Vitulkin didn't see another plane that day, but Natasha Voronina believes she did. She was sitting right underneath the point at which MH17 disintegrated. It was harvest time and she was having a break when she heard a loud bang. She looked up at the sky and saw black smoke and what she describes as "two aeroplanes, little ones like silver toys" fly in different directions.

But Western defence analysts deride the Russian defence ministry's claim that a Ukrainian Su-25 shot down MH17. Nick de Larrinaga, European editor of IHS Jane's Defence Weekly, says the idea is "absolute nonsense". The Su-25 is a close air-support aircraft, designed to operate just above ground level, attacking tanks and other vehicles, he says. It's "effectively a flying tank", which doesn't have a pressurised cockpit. As such, it is not designed to operate at high altitude and shoot down aircraft - which is a major problem for the Russian theory, given that we know MH17 was flying at 33,000ft (10,000m) when it was hit.

This has not stopped the Russian media from continuing to explore the theory. The slogan of the Moscow-based, international news network, Russia Today - "Question More" - neatly encapsulates the Kremlin approach.

Yana Erlashova, one of Russia Today's star reporters, found many witnesses who said they had seen jet fighters.

With the help of the Russian Air Force, she staged an extraordinary experiment and demonstrated that the Su-25 is capable of reaching 33,000ft.

But it turns out that this heavily armoured fighter jet can reach that altitude only by discarding its weapons. And firing a weapon at 33,000ft would cause it to stall. What's more Nick de Larrinaga points out the Su-25 is actually slower than a Boeing 777, so it couldn't even have caught up with MH17. Oh, and it uses small, short-range, heat-seeking missiles, which aren't designed to shoot down distant aircraft.

If that wasn't enough, the Dutch Safety Board found that around 800 pieces of shrapnel had ripped through MH17, clear evidence of the deadly power only a ground-to-air missile could deliver. The Buk missile has a 70kg (154lb) warhead, which is far more powerful than the warheads on the air-to-air missiles fired from fighter jets.

"I don't push any scenarios or theories, I just report what people say," she told me.

.....

On the day MH17 crashed, Valentina Kovolenko was digging potatoes with her daughter. Standing in the same spot she told me a large noise had made her look up. At first she thought it was a plane crashing, but she realised it was, in fact, a missile being launched, the like of which she had never seen before and has never seen since.

"We saw what turned out to be a missile but it went behind the clouds. And a few minutes later we heard what sounded like an explosion," she said. From her house Valentina has a commanding view, barring any clouds, and she said she didn't see any other planes that day.

The US Government says it has secret spy imagery of a Buk missile being launched, but it has refused to publish it for fear, apparently, of revealing its technical capabilities. Ray McGovern, a CIA analyst for 27 years, is not convinced, though. He argues the US has led an effusive propaganda effort "to paint Putin in the blackest of colours" to bolster support for sanctions.

It also features a bunch of work we've done at Bellingcat, and sounds like it'll be a very good documentary all round.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2016 06:52

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

ANNA News, the pro-Russian outlet famous for putting GoPros on Syrian tanks, has been hacked, and the hackers have started publish their emails. The first one is a concerned DNR commander asking them about Russian military equipment caught in shot in one of their videos.

https://twitter.com/Euan_MacDonald/status/726044866170486784

https://twitter.com/24todayneteng/status/725974406531567616

# ¿ Apr 29, 2016 16:32

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

The BBC documentary, The Conspiracy Files: Who Shot Down MH17?, is on tomorrow at 9pm BST on BBC 2, and should be a good watch, not least because I'm in it. There's a bunch of theories tested about MH17, and so more evidence supporting key theories.

# ¿ May 2, 2016 15:22

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Nilbop posted:

Are they confident enough to come out heavily in favour of one side?

They take a look at various claims made by various individuals and groups, in some case interviewing those people, and then get experts to weigh in. I know they look at the SU-25 theory, which is then demolished by experts saying it was physically impossible; they investigative claims the smoke photos were fake, which includes testing claims by an RT journalists they interview you can't see it from the place it was supposedly taken from (which they show is bullshit too); and I get to call the Russian MoD on all the bullshit they put out in their July 21st 2014 press conference. It's an hour long, so they cover quite a bit of stuff.

# ¿ May 2, 2016 19:59

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

HUGE PUBES A PLUS posted:

Will this be available eventually to people unlucky enough to not live in the UK? Usually BBC content is blocked online.

I expect someone will stick it on Liveleak or YouTube, I heard a Russian translation team is ready to get it done the moment it's broadcast.

# ¿ May 2, 2016 20:52

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Poison Jam posted:

How much are the CIA and MI6 paying you Eliot? It's despicable that you forced that nice old man to go on the telly and tell everybody how silly you are, when we all know you're on their payroll (does it pay in monster munch?)

One sec, just on the phone to MI6 in my London Penthouse.

# ¿ May 3, 2016 22:34

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

My favourite bit is they actually broadcast the bit where I called the Russian MoD liars and said they were absolutely disgusting.
[edit] This bit:
https://twitter.com/bellingcat/status/727740537625776129

Episode is here on iPlayer
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0791ns4/the-conspiracy-files-who-shot-down-mh17

And for the moment it's on YouTube here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XATQcYIzrPM

Brown Moses fucked around with this message at 06:53 on May 5, 2016

# ¿ May 4, 2016 06:45

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

A new video of the Buk that shot down MH17 was recently posted on YouTube and discovered today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvwH0T2WCN0

We did some analysis on it here, the most interesting points is that it shows the truck took a slightly indirect route than previously assumed, apparently to avoid a low bridge, and it confirms the Buk was accompanied by 3 vehicles that were also seen in another separatist convoy on July 15th heading from Luhansk to Donetsk.

# ¿ May 12, 2016 20:33

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Following our earlier email exchange with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where we caught them plagiarising Livejournal they've now sent us one final response:

quote:

Dear Mr. Higgins,

On our part, we regret to note that you still prefer making conclusions based on unverified and oftehn contradictory information from social network, the factual value of which is quite doubtful. However, you also use purely technical details of military hardware design to support your research, despite having no apparent expertise in this field. Also, throughout our dialogue, you have ignored our calls to base your research on Russian official data, confirmed by tests and experiments.

Given all of the above, we believe it would be more suitable for you to continue your dialogue not with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation but with experts which have experience in the fields discussed. We would like to note that many of them have repeatedly expressed their opinion on Bellingcat reports, explaining your approaches and, therefore, conclusions as dubious.

Kind regards,

Department of Information and Press of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation

To which I've replied

quote:

Dear Sir/Madam,

We note with disappointment (but little surprise) you�ve failed to answer any questions we've sent you, or addressed the clear plagiarism by members of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in your previous reply. We can only then take it that plagiarised Livejournals are the extent of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs evidence on MH17.

As for experts, we're sure you'll find the opinions of the experts we've consulted for our 2 year anniversary report on MH17 to be fascinating.

Kind regards

Eliot Higgins

# ¿ May 17, 2016 13:28

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Discendo Vox posted:

This is going to make the next time they start attacking you in the press all the sweeter.

Well they mentioned us again a couple of weeks ago

quote:

The BBC film and the Bellingcat report

There have been many requests to comment on the recent BBC film about the Malaysian Boeing tragedy and the so-called Bellingcat report, which was published a few days ago.

I will begin with the film. We don�t think it is objective although its authors promised a balanced analysis of all versions. In the end, they have analysed and substantiated only one version brushing off all the others as preposterous. Who has seen the film will agree with this assessment.

The authors� prejudice, particularly against Russia, is evident to us. I think every minute of the footage breathes such prejudice. The film does not cite a single Russian official�s opinion while amply quoting Western spokespeople. Worse than that, the film criticises Russia for allegedly refusing to comment. In fact, I myself have described and commented the situation in detail. Russian experts and officials are always willing to cooperate, and it was the BBC team that demonstrated reluctance to interact with us.

On the whole, the film produces the impression of sneering at the Russian contribution to the investigation. Versions advanced by Russian experts are subjected to unsubstantiated criticism. We have the impression that the authors are out to demonstrate that the Russian point of view is completely misguided instead of offering an unbiased analysis of all versions.

We regret that the BBC believes that�s what objective coverage is about. We are of the contrary opinion.

We could make a similar assessment of the latest Bellingcat report. Regrettably, our appeals to use the entire verified information offered by Russia on the MH17 crash in Ukraine were shrugged off. On the whole, I would like to say that the Western media and online coverage of the tragedy is extremely politicised. I regard it as mythologising the theme, to an extent � which means that professional opinions and analyses of facts and experimental finds recede under the impact of artistic devices passed for investigative journalism to produce the desired effect.

We regard the campaign as an attempt by certain destructive forces to indoctrinate the public with a fictitious and artificial picture of demoniac Russia, self-defence forces and others. That is a deplorable and very dangerous trend because we are not just dealing with a plane crash, an exciting thriller, but with innocent victims. We live in computer age � just look at all the cameras, laptops and suchlike in this room. It is especially dangerous today when attempts are made not to see, not to show the full information picture, but to keep on elaborating a single plotline.

Considering how grave this tragedy is, we believe that it should be investigated by competent experts at a high professional level. We have well-grounded concerns that double standards may be used as bloggers replace authorised professionals responsible for what they say and do. However interested and sympathetic these bloggers might be, they are not professionals. Despite this, final conclusions proceed from their assessments, and essential though provisional hypotheses are based on their opinions.

These people are only superficially informed in the relevant field. They are not professionals in it. They might be experts on IT, information retrieval, etc., but they are not experts in this particular field though they venture to draw conclusions of a global scope.

Everyone is waiting for a real investigation. We insist that it must proceed from verified facts and materials from reliable, foolproof sources � specifically, not amateur snapshots from social media sites. What we need is thoroughly checked materials providing reliable information from meticulously identified sources.

As you know, Russia has submitted a vast amount of information concerning the disaster to the Joint Investigation Team.

This is the best bit

quote:

Everyone is waiting for a real investigation. We insist that it must proceed from verified facts and materials from reliable, foolproof sources � specifically, not amateur snapshots from social media sites. What we need is thoroughly checked materials providing reliable information from meticulously identified sources.

This just after they sent us a plagiarised blog post for their MH17 evidence.

# ¿ May 17, 2016 20:28

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Update on the MH17 European Court of Human Rights case, they're asking for roughly $3 billion in damages from Russia

quote:

Next of kin of passengers on MH17 airliner downed by missile seek $10 million each

Families of Australian victims of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 downed by a missile over the Ukraine in July 2014 are seeking compensation of $10 million per passenger in what could result in one of the largest aviation disaster payouts in history.

The claim served by Sydney legal firm LHD Lawyers on May 9 to the European Court of Human Rights lays the blame squarely at the door of the Russians.

Proposed respondents to the claim are the Russian Federation and President Vladimir Putin. It argues that Russia recognises an attack on a passenger plane is an egregious act having offered "a $50 million reward in connection with the terrorist downing of an Egyptian Airline that killed a large number of Russian citizens".

There are 33 next of kin named in the application, eight from Australia, one from New Zealand and the remainder from Malaysia. There were 298 occupants on the plane which, lawyers say, could potentially take the compensation bill to almost $3 billion.

Among the claimants named are the parents of 25-year-old aerospace engineer Fatima Dyczynski

Her parents, Jerzy, a cardiac surgeon, and Angela, who live in Perth, told Fairfax Media that even after almost two years since the shooting down of MH17, no words could describe their loss.

Using an analogy to space science that their daughter was so passionate about, they said: "Fatima made us aware we are all together on the spaceship Earth and that the crew has a power to make changes of the whole planet, even sometimes we feel small and insignificant.

"We have to remember that our actions can produce the "butterfly effect", a small change within us or in our environment will result in a significant, massive outcome for the mankind.

"Fatima was, is and will be a source of inspiration for us the parents, for young students, scientists beginning their careers and the enthusiastic entrepreneurs establishing their high-tech start-up companies."

Also named is Tim Lauschet, the son of Sydney teacher Gabriele Lauschet, who has been forced to sell the family home since the tragedy. The New Zealander named on the application is Sharlene Ayley, a mother of two young boys who lost her husband, Robert.

The documents allege that the Russian Federation has worked to keep its involvement hidden. It has failed to conduct an internal investigation, refused to participate in the cockpit reconstruction and its "Pawn Storm" cyber warfare unit hacked into the Dutch Safety Board investigative website," it states.

Jerry Skinner, a co-associate of Sydney law firm LHD based in the US whose signature is on the application, has a reputation for achieving large compensation awards for his clients. He helped negotiate $10 million in compensation from Libya for each family who lost loved ones in the Lockerbie disaster.

He argues in the application: "Similarly, this Court to deter the Russian Federation from violating the sanctity of passenger flights should order the Federation to pay each applicant $10 million."

Currently in Sydney, he told Fairfax Media that the European Court could make a determination of 'just satisfaction' that the respondent(s) is accountable for the acts that occurred. It could then move to the International Court of Arbitration to put a figure on the award.

"Hopefully they [the Russian Federation] will want to talk about it before we get to moving from one court to an arbitration," he said."

Of Putin, he added: "He lost a plane himself over Sinai [a Metrojet Airbus 321 carrying Russian holidaymakers in October 2015] and he offered $50 million to anybody who would give him evidence to find anything.

"Having done all this in public I am afraid the idea is to get him to stand up to his word and pay for his own mistakes, which are very similar to what happened to his people.

"My clients want accountability for the deed. They want enough money to reflect that the Russians take this seriously and serve as a deterrent. I have encouraged the Russians to contact me to discuss how much money that is ... but I have heard nothing from Russia, from their embassy or from the contact points that we established to indicate that they are willing to talk about negotiating."

Skinner added: "We have now seen a rash of 'let's take it out on the airlines' because they are easier targets than everybody thinks.

"The issue [over MH17] is will the Russians acknowledge accountability? This is about justice and accountability, not about the biggest sum of money you can get."

For Bellingcat's part we've been working on a two year anniversary report summarising all our work, and for this report we've approached various experts in fields that are related to the analysis we've done, and asked them to do their own expert analysis on the material we're using.

# ¿ May 21, 2016 09:17

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

As I understand it part of the case is that the Buk that shot down MH17 was sent over as part of Russia's wider secret war in Ukraine, sending troops and equipment to Ukraine, and firing artillery across the border. So the ECHR will not only be looking at whether Russia shot down MH17, but also if Russia was running a secret war in Ukraine, and it'll open quite a can of worms if they say there's a case for both.

# ¿ May 21, 2016 13:30

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

HUGE PUBES A PLUS posted:

https://twitter.com/GrahamWP_UK/status/735217932637196289

This is totally in line with his Nine rules of New Gonzo journalism

quote:

5. You don�t follow establishment rules � standard journalistic conventions, Geneva Conventions etc � these are not for the New Gonzo journalist. You set your own ethics, high, break all the old-school rules freely.

6. You can embed � don�t be afraid of getting close to one side if it gets you better footage. You know the objectivity is in the footage, and you do what you can to get the best footage possible.

# ¿ May 25, 2016 01:51

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Savchenko has been released and is currently flying to Kiev, in exchange for two Russian soldiers.

# ¿ May 25, 2016 11:45

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Live feed of Savchenko's arrival home

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfYOsjPJJDo

# ¿ May 25, 2016 12:25

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

A new video from the OSCE drone shows separatists receiving in coming fire, then returning fire

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUBJHrKCBoo

# ¿ Jun 2, 2016 12:05

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Deteriorata posted:

MH17 crash: Big Buk missile part found in Ukraine

It seems a lot of media missed that this photo, and other Buk remains, were already published last October in the DSB. The MH17 Truthers now claim the nozzle image being treated as new is all part of the MH17 conspiracy.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2016 07:30

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

OddObserver posted:

Well, maybe Mustafa Naiem is a CIA agent. And we all know that Facebook was a CIA project. Just like Netflix was secretly setup by the US government!

Don't forget Google Earth was funded by the CIA, and we all know who uses Google Earth a lot in their work.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2016 16:41

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Elukka posted:

Kinda tangentially related, but when a commercial company posted this image of the latest Falcon 9 landing attempt 40 minutes after the fact, it occurred to me we seem to be inching closer and closer to military-style, fast response satellite imagery in the civilian realm. I imagine it still costs a bunch though.

There's going to be an ever increasing number of commercial satellites being launched, some with video as well as still images, so prices will drop and make it more accessible. The biggest limitation beyond that is regulations on the resolution of commerical imagery, but I expect that will improve as demand increases.

Speaking of Google Earth, they've just updated a bunch of imagery related to MH17 locations, including a better view of the truck transporting the Buk on July 17th, which we wrote up here
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2016/06/22/new-google-earth-satellite-update-confirms-presence-of-buk-in-eastern-ukraine/

# ¿ Jun 22, 2016 17:33

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Seems we've got someone worried about our upcoming Bellingcat report, today 17 Russian websites and blogs have published articles attacking me and Bellingcat. Many of the sites we've previously linked to troll factories, so I guess someone got orders to go after us, but helpfully it's also exposed all the Livejournal bloggers who posted stories attacking us at the same time. Here's a selection
http://newinform.com/18327-lzhem-za-dengi-kak-bellingcat-propagandiruet-rusofobiyu
https://cont.ws/post/318973
http://riafan.ru/537069-bellingcat-eliota-higginsa-guru-ot-razvedki-ili-profany-ot-interneta
http://politikus.ru/articles/80540-bellingcat-samodelnye-rassledovaniya-v-domashnih-usloviyah-ot-eliota-higginsa.html
http://politpuzzle.ru/36812-bellingcat-zapadnaya-fabrika-po-proizvodstvu-fejkov/#part0
http://whoswhos.org/153877-ryad-prichin-po-kotoryim-ne-stoit-prinimat-rassledovaniya-bellingcat-vserez
http://slovodel.com/489701-bellingcat-ocherednaya-igrushka-gosdepa-ssha#part2
http://geo-politica.info/teoriya-feykov-ot-bellingcat-glavnoe--popast-v-trend.html
http://mpsh.ru/13096--13096-bellingcat.html
http://kalmius-info.ru/avtori/awgust/bellingcat-lzhekonsultanty-na-sluzhbe-gosdepa.html
http://bagrat12.livejournal.com/798495.html
http://tiranozavr-leps.livejournal.com/676818.html

The best one is this because it has charts about how we are funded
http://manzal.livejournal.com/423094.html

# ¿ Jul 14, 2016 20:56

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Discendo Vox posted:

Informative!

BM, what are the odds that some of these people are genuinely independent of the state propaganda apparatus and are just drinking the kool-aid?

*edited to not hotlink the propaganda blog, now that I've thought the consequences through

Well they released their articles all around the same time, using a lot of the same language, even spelling my name wrong the same way in some cases, so it's likely co-ordinated, and we've seen other examples of the same sites releasing stories on other topics all at the same time, so there's a pattern of behaviour there.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2016 05:13

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Optimus Prime Rib posted:

This is ominous. The FSB is claiming they thwarted an attempt by Ukrainian special forces to conduct "terrorist attacks" in Crimea.

Here's a summary of the information that's out there, unclear if it's legit or Russian bullshit at this point, more through a lack of corroborating evidence than anything

https://medium.com/@DFRLab/https-medium-com-dfrlab-competing-narratives-6ff353366f70#.4jbnw72l4

# ¿ Aug 10, 2016 17:30

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Here's a piece another project I'm working on has put out about the OSCE drone monitoring of Minsk 2 violations. Visit for the gifs and sliders, stay for the content
https://medium.com/dfrlab/jamming-the-eyes-in-the-sky-over-ukraines-east-5dc10f136cc5#.3ovu97ls1

# ¿ Aug 10, 2016 21:00

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

HUGE PUBES A PLUS posted:

The Netherlands will publish the official report on the MH17 crash on September 28, 2016.

http://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2016/08/19/7118181/

I'm very interested to see how far they go with the information they've got, supposedly it'll be at least the type of missile used and the launch site. We've been saying for over a year which both were, so hopefully the police agree. Although I'm not holding out any hope for it, it would be good if they also said where they thought the missile launcher came from. I'm tempted to pop over for the press conference.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2016 13:15

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

cinci zoo sniper posted:

Browns Moses is yet again being accused of curating a facade for publication of anti-Russian malarkey, as per words of Major-general Konashenkov, chair of public affairs department of Russia's MoD.

I should send him a bouquet for all the traffic he drove to our site.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2016 16:07

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

anilEhilated posted:

Not completely related, but congrats BM to landing a new job, keep up the good work!

I'm kinda tempted to pirate that Smolensk movie just for the wow factor but I don't think anyone will bother with English subtitles...

It's a visiting position, so it's not a job, but we have various plans which will become public at a later date. Meanwhile, exactly two weeks ahead of the JIT press conference on MH17 Almaz-Antey has come out gunning for Bellingcat, dutifully reported by Russian media including Sputnik

https://m.sputniknews.com/europe/20160914/1045312486/bellingcat-misinformation-mh17-investigation.html

# ¿ Sep 14, 2016 23:04

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

RT and Sputnik are now reporting on the "Anti-Bellingcat" report some anonymous Russian bloggers put together which is full of errors and conspiracy theories. Here's a little response from us

https://twitter.com/bellingcat/status/776705824303570945

# ¿ Sep 16, 2016 10:09

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 21:41

Brown Moses: Feb 22, 2002

Young Freud posted:

Isn't Stratfor also one of those private intelligence industry companies like Jane's Defence? Like the way you can access their top secret confidential intelligence briefs is by having a subscription?

RT's basically the whole bullshit you hear from a channer or a redditor whenever Lowtax puts up a paywall on a thread or forum. Just because you have to pay for Dangaronpa LPs doesn't mean it's not publicly available.

Yeah, the "anonymous Russian bloggers" also claim you can't find the image used by Stratfor and Bellingcat on the Digital Globe catalogue search, and come up with this whole conspiracy theory about it. Thing is, you can, they just suck at using the search function. The report is long and full of errors like that, so we won't bother replying to the report, but if RT are dumb enough to quote it then I'm happy to take the piss out of them for it.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2016 10:33

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Eastern Europe: Olivier's sphere of influence

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