Russia’s other theories about the downing of MH17
Russia’s mainstream media disseminated an outrageous tale, claiming that the downing of Malaysia’s Boeing (flight MH17) over Eastern Ukraine was “a special operation of the CIA.” This ridiculous claim was brought forth by Sergei Sokolov – the former bodyguard of Boris Berezovsky, the Russian oligarch who was found dead at his palatial Berkshire home in 2013. According to Sokolov, the CIA plan was to blow up the airliner from within, while simultaneously striking it with a missile from a Ukrainian “Buk”.
In an attempt to corroborate his outlandish claims, Sokolov produced audio recordings, purporting to contain the conversation between David Hamilton, an American consultant who worked in Ukraine last year for the National Democratic Institute, and David Loyd Stern, a broadcast journalist from Kansas who lives in Ukraine and has reported for the BBC from Kyiv. Sokolov baselessly accused both men of being “CIA spies.”
The man identified as Mr. Stern speaks with British accent, while the real Mr. Stern speaks American-accented English. Both men in the recordings don’t talk like native English speakers and use awkward dialogue and uncommon expressions. Bellingcat, the New York Timesand Foreign Policy have reached the only plausible conclusion, declaring that the recordings were obviously fake.