Russia’s Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, Lt. Gen. Andrey Kartopolov and Chief of the Air Force Main Staff, Lt. Gen. Igor Makushev participated in a media conference in Moscow on July 21, 2014. Their attempts at deflecting the blame were less than subtle. Russia’s military officials asked traditionally loaded questions along the lines of the infamous presupposition: “When did you stop beating your wife?” One of the chief claims in this presentation was cited by Russia Today as follows: “Why did #Ukraine SU-25 fly same path as #MH17, simultaneously at same altitude?”

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Notorious Girkin birthed one of the most outlandish allegations, claiming that all of the passengers on the Malaysia flight were already dead, prior to the plane being shot down. To buttress this allegation, Russian media raised the question of why the passports of the victims appeared to be so clean, as though they were brand new. This red herring may indeed impress some people in Russia, where the passport has to be shown even when you’re simply taking out the trash. This approach is drastically different from the West, where the passport is used mainly for international travel. Girkin likely borrowed this twisted tail of “corpses on a plane” from a British TV Series, “Sherlock.” Girkin’s lame attempt of convincing the world that his group of merry terrorists didn’t murder hundreds of innocents, “because they were already dead,” only magnifies their obvious culpability.

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Russian mainstream media often relies on unnamed social media users and self-proclaimed experts, without fact-checking any of their claims. Russia Today found someone claiming to be “Carlos,” an alleged Spaniard, working as an air traffic controller in Kyiv’s international airport, Borispol. Without ever fully identifying himself, “Carlos” Tweeted in Spanish that Ukrainian jets were following the passenger plane and shot it down. Numerous prominent news outlets picked up this ridiculous story, including television channel Russia 24, the Defense Ministry’s Zvezda channel, Rossiiskaya Gazeta and Komsomolskaya Pravda.

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The same terrorists who first proudly boasted they had the Buk system, then categorically denied it after shooting down MH17, now say they do have Buk, but it is “broken.” It should be noted that the terrorists previously claimed that should Buk malfunction, they could easily fix it up and use it to shoot down planes “like taking candy from a baby.” Russian news media gushed about the so-called “rebels” who will “guard the skies” with their new Buk system. Russian Twitter trolls, working in tandem with propagandists and the media, spread “happy news” about repaired Buk being ready for use as of July 14, 2014.

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“Russia One” television channel and other mainstream media in Russia would have you believe that OSCE has full trust in the “rebels”and has been granted full access to conduct a thorough investigation. In reality, OSCE report complains of “visibly intoxicated and aggressive” terrorists, who have given the investigators very limited access. Journalists on the scene report that victims wallets have been completely emptied, their belongings were looted and corpses ignored, while the terrorists took shameless selfies on-site.

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Russian mainstream media proudly boasted that the terrorists had in their possession SA-11 missile systems, also known as the Buk-M1 surface-to-air missile system. For example, on June 29, 2014,ITAR-TASS news agency reported that “rebels” gained control of a Buk missile installation. After the system was apparently used to shoot down the Malaysian airliner on July 17, 2014, ITAR-TASS reportedthat none of the “rebels” in any of the self-proclaimed “republics” in Eastern Ukraine ever had the lethal and sophisticated Buk. Recent intelligence reports reveal that neither one of these stories were correct, since the weaponry used for the attack, along with the crew of operators, was imported from Russia and later returned.

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Russian media networks proudly reported that so-called “rebels” again succeeded in shooting down a Ukrainian airplane. This act corresponded with the pattern of terrorist attacks on Ukrainian aircraft. On June 13th, terrorists shot down a Ukrainian transport plane, killing 40 paratroopers and 9 crew members. On June 24th, they downed a Ukrainian helicopter, killing all 9 on board. On July 14th, terrorists shot down a Ukrainian military cargo plane. On July 16th, terrorists downed a Ukrainian fighter jet. These attacks were praised and touted in the Russian mainstream media, as the victories of the imaginary “Novorussia” over the government of Ukraine.

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One of the most bizarre exertions, blaming the Ukrainian military for allegedly shooting down the Malaysian airliner, was based on a claim that this was an attempt to murder Russian President, Vladimir Putin. Networks reported that on July 17, 2014, the presidential plane took quite a bizarre round-about route across Ukraine, on its way from Warsaw, Poland to Moscow, Russia. It was reported by Russia Today (more than once), Komsomolskaya Pravda and a number of other Russian mainstream media outlets. Russian aviation sources assert that Putin’s airplane never flies through Ukrainian airspace (particularly since the time Russia started fomenting unrest in the East of Ukraine this year).

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In another failed attempt to hide his culpability, on July 17, 2014, Girkin claimed that the terrorists did not have any equipment capable of shooting down the aircraft traveling at the altitude of more than 4,000 meters. Only one day earlier, on July 16, 2014, Girkin boasted of the terrorists shooting down a plane that was traveling at an altitude of 6,000 meters. These obvious contradictions are self-explanatory. Tragic events of July 17, 2014, demonstrated that a group of drunken rag-tag bandits, headed by Russian intelligence officers and members of the military, should not be entrusted with weapons of any caliber, much less anti-aircraft missile systems.

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The tragic downing of a Malaysian passenger plane MH17 sent Putin’s elaborate propaganda machine into overdrive, ultimately causing it to unravel. The evidence points overwhelmingly at the terrorists, whose leaders are Russian citizens, current and former members of the Russian armed forces and FSB.

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