A Mountain Of Evidence Links Russia To The Downing Of The Malaysia Airlines Flight 17

While Vladimir Putin dissembles and uses the state controlled Russian media to spin lies that border on the incredible  (e.g., all those on board Flight 17 were dead when the plane took off), the evidence continues to mount that Putin's finger prints are all over the heinous destruction of a civilian airliner with 298 people on board, including infants and children.  Putin spent billions of rubles putting on the Sochi Olympics in a bid to showcase Russia and the positive aspects of Russian culture and now in a matter of days all of that goodwill is destroyed and world opinion is rapidly shifting against Russia.  A piece in Business Insider looks at the mounting evidence that Russia bore ultimate blame for the death in the skies over Ukraine.  Here are excerpts:

There's a growing body of evidence that has emerged that links Russia to the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine, despite the best efforts of pro-Russian militants to scrub the record.

About 40 miles from Donetsk in pro-Russian held territory, the flight carrying 298 passengers and crew was brought down on Thursday, killing everyone on board. The U.S. believes it was likely shot down by an SA-11 missile fired from a Buk surface-to-air missile system.

Both Russian President Vladimir Putin and pro-Russian militants have deflected, attempting to blame Ukraine for the crash. Later, the top rebel commander put forth a conspiracy theory that the passengers actually died days before, The Washington Times reports.

Pro-Russian militants allegedly discussed the receipt of Buk missile systems just days before.

On July 14, a pro-Russian militant and a man identified as "Oreon," an intelligence officer with Russia, allegedly talk about taking down planes with Buk missile systems, according to audio released by Ukraine's security service.

"Excellent. They [militants in rebel territory proclaimed as Donetsk People's Republic] are avenging for planes today, but we have a couple of days more," Oreon allegedly says. "We already have Buk, we'll be shooting down them to hell."

As The Interpreter notes, at several points in the conversation, separatists talk about the Buk missile system crossing the border, along with Russian crews. The recordings, presented by Kiev as key evidence of Moscow's involvement with the rebels, was confirmed as authentic by U.S. intelligence analysts, AFP reported Sunday.

Video posted online shows a Buk missile launcher traveling through the rebel-held town of Snizhne. 

[A]nother video posted to YouTube on July 17 is much more revealing. It was described as showing a Buk traveling near Snizhne, a rebel-controlled area southeast of the MH17 crash site. While the original video was removed for unknown reasons, Eliot Higgins, a well-respected blogger who specializes in identifying weapons in Syria and Ukraine, confirmed the location as Snizhne through geolocation techniques.

  A reporter with The Associated Press on the ground in Snizhne also observed the Buk missile system

The Buk is a highly sophisticated system that requires specialized training to operate.

In a briefing at the Pentagon on Friday, Rear Admiral John Kirby told reporters that it "strains credulity" to think pro-Russian separatists believed to have shot down MH17 didn't have at least some help from Moscow. Kirby said the Buk is a "sophisticated piece of technology" that would likely require technical assistance from Russia.

"The system is not a simple system to use. You need at least four to six months of training and ongoing training to operate it," Ronald Bishop, a former U.S. Air Force missile expert, told Australia's Warwick Daily News. "To fire this system you need to have highly-specialized military training."

The pro-Russian separatist leader boasted on social media of downing an aircraft shortly after MH17 went down.

Posting on VKontakte, Russia's version of Facebook, the pro-Russian leader Igor Strelkov wrote that "we have warned them — not to fly 'in our sky.'" Strelkov, a Russian citizen who is linked to Russian intelligence, said an AN-26 (a Ukrainian military transport) had been shot down, apparently not realizing MH17 was a civilian airliner.

Pro-Russian militants were reportedly caught on an audio recording talking about shooting down a military transport before realizing they had likely downed a civilian plane.

Shortly after the airliner had crashed, pro-Russian militants were reportedly caught on leaked phone calls, apparently discussing the shooting before eventually realizing they had shot down a civilian aircraft instead of a military target.

"It’s 100% a passenger aircraft,” a militant nicknamed "Major" is recorded as saying, noting that he saw no weapons nearby. "Absolutely nothing. Civilian items, medicinal stuff, towels, toilet paper."

Militants have allegedly tried to destroy evidence and block investigators and reporters from the crash site.

If the pro-Russian militants are confident that it was the government of Ukraine that shot down MH17, it would make sense that they would allow a full investigation and keep the crash site undisturbed so that link could be made. But as many have found out, they have been doing the exact opposite.

"The assumption is they're trying to remove evidence of what they did," a senior U.S. official briefed on the latest intelligence told The Wall Street Journal on Saturday.

In another phone call released by Ukraine's security service, pro-Russian militants sound frantic in their search for the MH17 black box. "I'll try to find out [where the box is]," a militant named "Oleksiy" says. His commander responds, "Do it really quick. Urgently. Moscow asks where the boxes are," while urging the militant to keep the black box out of the hands of the OSCE.

There's more, all of it damning to Putin and Russia.  For the record, I am NOT anti-Russian.  My major in college included a minor in Russian history.  Russia is a great nation and its people have suffered horrifically because the nation's failed leaders.  Sadly, Russia is repeating the worse of its history with Putin at the helm.  If Russians want to achieve greatness, the first step they need to take is to overthrow Putin, strip him of all of the plunder he - and his political cronies - has taken to enrich themselves to the detriment of the Russian people.   If Putin sees himself as  the "new Tsar," perhaps he needs to meet the fate his communist predecessors dealt to Nicholas II and his family.  That would be a very sweet irony.