Russia: Don't look for who did the MH17 shootdown

[Jayjay]

the BUK & Truck sightings in Donetsk are more likely to be reliable than not.

Which photos or videos do you consider reliable? Let's examine one (or more) and see who took it, see what we know about it

You mean other than the Paris Match photo? Note, "sightings" above quote refers not to videos or photos but social media posts where people allegedly reported seeing the truck in Donetsk around the same time when the Paris Match photo was taken.

 

[Jayjay]

There are many, but let's take the Paris Match photo for example:

Paris Match (who has no reason to lie about it) says it was taken around 11am on July 17th, and the analysis of shadows shows that the time is beween 10am - 10:15am. It's further verified by other sightings in social media. But actually, asking for single image is misleading. The most convincing evidence is that all the photos and videos corraborate each other. You are trying to point out some pedantic doubts about single dating of individual images, and indeed some images or videos may be fake, but the scope of the conspiracy required to forge all of them is so astounding that it's ridiculous.

We have photos and videos of the convoy which supposedly had the buk in it that can be dated, but this "mystery buk" isn't in any of them.

Actually, there is a high probability that it was:

The Buk seen in Russia was dubbed “3×2” due to an obscured number on the side of the vehicle (as is the case with the ID numbers of many of the vehicles transported from Russia to Ukraine). The remaining parts of the numbers of the Buk photographed by Paris Match as well as the loading markings and white paint on the rubber side skirt below those numbers were in exactly the same position.

A burn mark above the exhaust visible in one of the Paris Match photographs was also in exactly the same position as the one seen on Buk 3×2 in Russia. While all of these pieces of evidence seemed to indicate that the Buk in Ukraine and Buk 3×2 were one and the same, an additional piece of evidence made the case particularly compelling. During Bellingcat’s research[40] into the many Buk sightings, it became clear that the rubber side skirt above the tracks of Buk missile launchers can become damaged over time and that this damage creates a unique “fingerprint” allowing different Buk photographs to be matched. In the case of Buk 3×2 and the Buk photograph by Paris Match in Donetsk, the side skirts were nearly identical.

It's not completely conclusive, but similarities are close enough to call it.

FAIL Jayjay.
I asked for a dated verified photo or video, and you give me this crap. I did not ask for you long winded justification for why you think this is real.
Now I will ask again. Do you have one verified and dated photo. This photo is neither dated nor verified.
This photo is "verified" by other photos on social media ...bwa ha hahahahahah

You are failing to understand the nature of how evidence is corraborated. The fact that the same truck with the same BUK was seen on the same day in multiple places along the route from Donetsk to Snizhne is verification.

None of those photos can be verified. So you can't use unverified photos to verify another photo. What court would accept that? Not to mention you have just thrown out this vague allegation that somewhere are some photos. Once you start mentioning specific ones you will look pretty silly.

Any court in the world would accept this as evidence, and weigh is against other evidence. You specificly wanted to talk about a single image, and I specified why we know it's from the date that it is, from multiple sources (Paris Match, social media spottings, analysis of the shadows in the photo). What you dont' seem to get is that thsi isn't a 0% or 100% certainty. We might know one photo is depecting a certain event at a, say, 50% certainty. When you have two such photos confirming the same event, that's 75% certainty. Three photos, 88% certainty. And so on. The evidence adds up.

What you are doings is basically irrelevant whining about pedantic details instead of looking at the big picture.

Do you even know who took them? Most of the photos and videos come from Ukrainain secret service. Why on earth would you take that at face value?

Where is your proof that this photo comes from Ukrainian secret service? Actually, I bet you can't show me a single photo that you can prove to be from Ukrainian secret service by your own standards of verification. Why don't you apply your own ridiculous standards of verification on any of the claims you make?

I gave you a photo that is both dated and independently verified..

No you have not. At best you have Paris Match saying that the mysterious anonymous photographer (if they even exist) told them he/she took it on such and such a day.

Seeing as most pf the "evidence" comes from Ukrainian secret service there is a good chance this one did too.

Then it should be easy for you to give some evidence about the alleged link between Paris Match and Ukrainian secret service.

Fact remains, I gave pretty good reasons to think the Paris Match photo is genuine and that it was taken on moring of July 17th 2014. You have provided zero evidence that it's not. You may do so in subsequent posts, but so far you haven't done so.

Paris Match have published photo-shopped photos before, and it is up to you to explain why you explain why anyone should accept it is real

Because Paris Match is a reputable newspaper (I asked you to prove otherwise, you have not even tried) and the photo is independently verified. If this was the only photo, and nobody else saw the truck, then you might have a point. But again you keep ignoring all the other evidence from the same day from multiple independent sources.

There seems to be a pretty good case it is photo-shopped too, but that is another hurdle you need to overcome. But first things first.

We have truckloads of fake evidence in this whole saga, so you need to somehow verify this one. It is very very easily done if it is real.

We also have truckloads of evidence that is not fake. And if it is so easy to do, then why don't you take up my challenge and do it for some photo that you think is genuine, such as photos of Ukrainian BUKs.

You keep ignoring the elephant in the room which is that there are multiple lines of evidence that all point to the same conclusion. If all the evidence was made up or misinterpreted, they would likely point to random directions instead of forming any kind of a coherent narrative.

You keep ignoring that most or all of the "evidence" comes from Ukrainian secret service of from Ukrainians who had social media accounts associated with Ukrainain Nazi/ultra nationalist groups.
Or were you unaware of that? Or from social media accounts that appeared for minutes then were closed down

Yet you are trying to peddle this bullshit as reliable.

In your world, every Ukrainian is a nazi and every Russian is a saint. That's not valid argumentation, it's jsut demonizing your opponents.

The social media accounts where it was reported are people who collect these sightings. People who actually do, wouldn't set up twitter account becuase that would put their lives in danger. And of course, they probably have pro-Ukrainian leanings and some of them might even be described as nationalists. But the issue here isn't that the reporters would be inbiased, it's that it would be practically impossible to coordinate the kind of vast conspiracy where they all agree to post to twitter at specific times and fake photos from Donetsk to Zures to Snizhne and even Russia and French Newspapers according to some insanely elaborate plan.

But even then, it's of course possible that some reports you see in social media are made up, and that's why it should never be the only source. But even if unreliable, it serves as verification of other data. You would like to pretend that every piece of evidence exists in a vacuum, but it doesn't. It adds up: multiple lines of evidence, pointing to the same conclusion means that something was going on. Random forgeries are often suspicious precisely because they are outliers and oddities and don't match with other evidence.

I must admit, I did not follow all these internet investgations.
Are you saying Paris Match reporter took that photo?

To best of our knowledge; at least Paris Match says that it was their team ("L’équipe de Paris Match avait justement photographié un tel lance-missile en bordure de Donetsk"). Some blogs seems to indicate that it may have been a freelancer but I've been unable to find where that piece of information came from. The name of the photographer is not known.

 

[Will Wiley]

Which photos or videos do you consider reliable? Let's examine one (or more) and see who took it, see what we know about it

You mean other than the Paris Match photo? Note, "sightings" above quote refers not to videos or photos but social media posts where people allegedly reported seeing the truck in Donetsk around the same time when the Paris Match photo was taken.

You said you could verify the Paris Match photo because other photos/videos/sightings corroborated it, didn't you. So. presumably you consider some of these other sightings to be genuine. Which ones?

 

[Jayjay]

I must admit, I did not follow all these internet investgations.
Are you saying Paris Match reporter took that photo?

No one knows who took the photo. It's secret, for some reason. Those who say it is real have changed the time it was supposed to have been taken too. The shadows didn't match that time so the time was changed so they did. Originally Bellingcat said 9 am, then this was changed to 11 am then to 10.45 am. It did not appear in satellite photo from that morning of that area, so some suggested another time,or that it traveled at great speed or that it was hiding under a tree.
there area lot of questions about it but we know it's real because there were other suspicious photos taken.

It is easy to verify a photo these days. All the relevant data is contained in the file if you have the original.
You would think we would have some proof that at least one of them was genuine. But we don't

Usually, when newpapers publish photos, they don't make the originals available nor do they necessarily name the photographer. I challenged you earlier to find a single photo that would show Ukraine had a BUK stationed anywhere, and then "verify" time and place of that photo with same standards that you are demanding of Paris Match photo. I am guessing you can't, because such data is usually not public.

Then what is? Reputable newspaper saying that it was their team and giving an estimated time, and said time being confirmed by independent analysis of the shadows in the picture, and the whole thing coinciding with social media posts confirming people seeing it. The exact time was just estimated by Bellingcat to be 10:40am, but you got to keep in mind that it could be inaccurate and the real time may be earlier or later. The DigitalGlobe satellite image from Donetsk that bellingcat bought was taken at 11:08, so it's not unreasonable to think that the truck would have been out of Donetsk by then already.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I have no doubt whatsoever that if a photo emerged with EXIF that showed something you want not to be true, you would be the first to point out that such information is easily altered.

While it's true it can be altered, unless you're an expert you will leave evidence it has been altered.
Even an expert will probably leave clues

There's nothing magical about it. It's not like photoshop where there will usually be clues left in the image. The metadata is easily changed by an appropriate tool and totally tracelessly.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You can't even prove that Russia exists; I believe that I flew over Russia a few times on flights from Australia to Europe and vice-versa; but I only have the airline's word for it - for all I know they could have been flying round in circles over Poland, or China, or Alice Springs, while the map showed the little plane icon inching its way across the Caspian Sea, and then over Russia and Ukraine.

Russia, exist? I flew over what the map said was Russia once. It most certainly didn't look inhabitable. The Russian embassy would not give us a visa. Obviously it's just a bogeyman!

 

[Jayjay]

The same way photos have always been dated - by the use of various bits of supporting evidence, none of which are immune to manipulation.

If you want to know when it was taken with 100% certainty, then that is impossible - but only in the sense that nothing you didn't see yourself can be certain; a favourite PRATT of the creationists. How do you know? Were you there?

You can't even prove that Russia exists; I believe that I flew over Russia a few times on flights from Australia to Europe and vice-versa; but I only have the airline's word for it - for all I know they could have been flying round in circles over Poland, or China, or Alice Springs, while the map showed the little plane icon inching its way across the Caspian Sea, and then over Russia and Ukraine.

For all I know, the whole nation is an elaborate hoax, and the area between the East coast of Belarus and the West coast of Alaska is all ocean.

Indeed, the entire world could be about 2000km across; with a high resolution video playing in the "windows" of intercontinental airliners, while the plane sits on a shaking platform, and thousands of scenery shifters get rid of all the British foliage, animals, towns and climate, and replace them with Australian ones, while I try to sleep on the long "flight".

It is easy to make everything seem doubtful - whether it is actually the truth or a lie. But it is harder to make a lie seem real - hence the sudden disappearance of the 'most likely' idea that MH017 was shot down by a Ukrainian fighter jet with an air to air missile (remember that 'hypothesis'?)

Now perhaps the plane wasn't shot down by Russian-backed separatist rebels. But if it wasn't, we need a better hypothesis to replace that one - an hypothesis that fits ALL of the facts as well as, or better than, the separatist rebels hypothesis. It's not enough to cast doubt on the leading hypothesis, because you can cast doubt on ANYTHING. What you need to do is to find a plausible alternative. And that has proven impossible.

The 'Ukrainian air to air hypothesis' was garbage, and has quietly been dropped by its proponents.

The 'Ukranians with their own BUK' hypothesis is less awful, but it has one GLARING problem - whoever shot down the plane was trying to shoot something down. And the only plausible airborne targets in the area at the time were Ukrainian.

It is believable that Russian or Russian-backed forces who somehow had a BUK might see an aircraft approaching from the West on their radar, and decide it was probably a Ukrainian aircraft, and worth taking a shot at - the separatists were already enjoying taking down Ukrainian military aircraft in the area, and were quite proud of their successes in doing so. Few if any Russian aircraft were in that airspace; certainly they were not flying combat support missions or otherwise doing things that might inspire the Ukrainian forces to try to shoot one down; and as the airspace was controlled by, and used by, the Ukrainian military, any Ukrainian anti-aircraft unit would have been very aware that most (if not all) targets in the skies above them were friendlies - making identification a priority before opening fire.

The Separatists, on the other hand, could quite reasonably have had an 'if it flies, shoot it' policy, 'knowing' that all air traffic above them was enemy traffic. All that would require was an unawareness that international civil air traffic used a corridor above their war zone.

The question that must be answered is simple - we can assume that whoever shot down MH017 believed that they were engaging a legitimate enemy target. If the Russians, or the separatists, thought it was another Ukrainian military aircraft, then that explains that. But if the Ukrainians were the ones who shot it down, the question is "What did they THINK they were shooting at?".

This wasn't the 4th of July, when they just fired a rocket for shits and giggles. It was an aimed shot at a (presumably misidentified) target. So what was the target believed to be? A plane coming from the direction of Kiev, in airspace dominated by Ukrainian aircraft, is a very strange target for a Ukrainian anti-aircraft unit to engage without 100% positive ID.

It's better to use evidence that to assume and speculate.
Do you have any evidence?

Some US intelligence analysts seem to think it was a rogue element of the Ukrainian army.
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/10/13/mh-17-the-dog-still-not-barking/

Here is the problem with your reasoning: you demand and imppossible level of verification from anythign that diagrees with you but believe uncritically and automatically everything you read from these bullshit conspiracy theorist "alternative" media as long as it agrees with you and blames the West.

For example, if you are not handed a raw image coupled with forensic analysis of the Paris Match photo, you declare it a fake. But at the same time, you take a rumour of something an anonymous source told Robert Parry as word of God. That's creationist-style double-thinking and hypocrisy right there.

But I'll bite it anyway...

Last year, another source briefed by U.S. intelligence analysts told me they had concluded that a rogue element of the Ukrainian government – tied to one of the oligarchs – was responsible for the shoot-down, while absolving senior Ukrainian leaders including President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. But I wasn’t able to determine if this U.S. analysis was a consensus or a dissident opinion.

they might have shot down the plane because they were losing.
If so then it has worked extremely well
It would also explain why Kolmoisky was sacked.

See.... we can all speculate without any evidence.

Thanks for admitting that you are speculating without evidence. There are two key points though:
A) Your speculation is based on rumour of what someone said, which is basically just hearsay, and

B) is not verified by any independent source. The Paris Match photo can be independently verified by geolocating it to Donetsk (i.e. the place is correct), analysing the shadows on the image (i.e. the time of date reported by Paris Match is correct), and from reports of other people sighting it in social media (i.e. the date and time are probably correct). Furthermore we know the source of the photo, that it was taken by a Paris Match team.

 

[Will Wiley]

and the whole thing coinciding with social media posts confirming people seeing it..

Social media posts from who? Ukrainian intelligence people? Why would you trust them?

 

[Jayjay]

The same way photos have always been dated - by the use of various bits of supporting evidence, none of which are immune to manipulation. .

That's not true. the photo was dated because Paris Match told us the date. Nothing more. But hey...they couldn't even get the location right. Paris Match had the wrong location.
Clearly they don't know what they are talking about.

Think about it. Paris Match, who published the photo didn't even know where it was taken. Yet apparently we should ignore that and just accept what they say about the date. Only an idiot would accept what Paris Match said.

What was the mistake? They originally said it was in Snizhne, when in reality it's in Donetsk on the road to Snizhne. Big whopping deal. It's a simple mistake between the team that took the photo and the guy who wrote the story and/or the caption.

Also, we should not accept the date or time at face value. They should be believed because the position of shadows in the image confirms it was taken around the same time as Paris Match claims, and there were other people who saw it too (week before the photo was published, so it's independently verified).

 

[Jayjay]

The same way photos have always been dated - by the use of various bits of supporting evidence, none of which are immune to manipulation.
<skipped lots of words>

Supporting evidence can be manipulated too.
Fact is, if there is no date on any of these pictures they are pretty much worthless.
And i think these internet investigators tend to simply assign July 17 date to every available photo.

I have hard time believing russian military allowed to take some of these photos after the fact.
I mean Assuming russians (not rebels) are responsible there would be no photos of BUK after disaster. They would cover damn thing and transport it at night without anyone taking pictures. Also I really doubtful russians (not rebels) would bring it into the city (Donetsk)
I think these are pictures of captured BUK and they were taken right after it was captured, they drove it around not knowing what to do with it, and rebels had no reason to hide the fact at the time that's why there are so many pictures. I believe they twitted one picture themselves too.

Also some of the pictures could in fact come from SBU (Ukrainian "KGB"), just to add some "positive" noise.

If it was noise, it would not be consistent with all the other evidence.

Also note, most of the photos and videos are taken before the disaster. They did get it out pretty silently, even though it was spotted later in Russia. Also your theory doesn't account for the fact that we have several witnesses seeing and reporting it independently from each other, before the incident, and none afterwards. If the rebels were "driving it around not knowing what to do with it", how come nobody saw it then?

 

[Will Wiley]

and there were other people who saw it too (week before the photo was published, so it's independently verified).

Who saw it?

 

[Jayjay]

What evidence is this and how do you rule out ricochets?

Jayjay here is a photo of one part of the plane. Look at all the holes caused by preformed fragments that moved longitudinally through the plane. Do you really think they all ricochets?
View attachment 4627

I am not qualified to say what those are. And neither are you. This piece was not given to the DSB until after the investigation. We don't know where this piece fits, or what those holes really are. It's just colorful pictures that Almaz Antey drew up, and in that sense no different from the "bullet holes" theory by the Russian Engineers Union that you were peddling last year.

But per the consulations section of the DSB report, it's not ricochets that the problem is, it's that the path of the fragments changes when they penetrate the plane. Some of the fragments inside the plane may have changed direction.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

They say Paris Match reporter took the picture. I don't understand how they reported wrong time and location in this case.

Ukraine is UTC+2.

9am UTC time is 11am local time. This might not be a difference in time.

 

[Jayjay]

They say Paris Match reporter took the picture. I don't understand how they reported wrong time and location in this case.

They reported the wrong location (it was in Donetsk on the road to Snizhne, where the team was headed, while the original report said Snizhne), but the time was right and was confirmed by the analysis of the shadows.

What tupac is saying is just bellingcat guesswork for the time when they were still trying to figure out when it was. And even the final bellingcat estimate of 10:40am may be suspect, so it's probably give or take half an hour.

 

[Jayjay]

You mean other than the Paris Match photo? Note, "sightings" above quote refers not to videos or photos but social media posts where people allegedly reported seeing the truck in Donetsk around the same time when the Paris Match photo was taken.

You said you could verify the Paris Match photo because other photos/videos/sightings corroborated it, didn't you. So. presumably you consider some of these other sightings to be genuine. Which ones?

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2015/07/16/in-their-own-words/

There are six mentions of the truck in Donetsk, though four of them are via one account. Each one of them could be suspect individually but it's the mass of evidence that makes them probably genuine.

 

[Jayjay]

and the whole thing coinciding with social media posts confirming people seeing it..

Social media posts from who? Ukrainian intelligence people? Why would you trust them?

Because the sheer scope of conspiracy required to concoct something like that makes it nearly impossible. And later when locals were asked, they also confirmed that they saw the BUKs so it's not just social media. And we have the photos and videos. To have all these evidence fabricated and somehow fed to various different sources and have it all form a coherent picture, would be a psy-ops that no intelligence service, not SBU or CIA or FSB or KGB or Mossad, has ever pulled off and is in the realm of science fiction movies.

 

[Will Wiley]

You said you could verify the Paris Match photo because other photos/videos/sightings corroborated it, didn't you. So. presumably you consider some of these other sightings to be genuine. Which ones?

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2015/07/16/in-their-own-words/

There are six mentions of the truck in Donetsk, though four of them are via one account. Each one of them could be suspect individually but it's the mass of evidence that makes them probably genuine.

All debunked. https://hectorreban.wordpress.com/2015/08/01/17-july-buk-sightings-planting-evidence-in-advance/

Here is the convoy. There is not a buk in it.
[YOUTUBE]https://youtu.be/4Co587-K4Qc[/YOUTUBE]

 

[bilby]

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2015/07/16/in-their-own-words/

There are six mentions of the truck in Donetsk, though four of them are via one account. Each one of them could be suspect individually but it's the mass of evidence that makes them probably genuine.

All debunked. https://hectorreban.wordpress.com/2015/08/01/17-july-buk-sightings-planting-evidence-in-advance/

Here is the convoy. There is not a buk in it.
[YOUTUBE]https://youtu.be/4Co587-K4Qc[/YOUTUBE]

That is A convoy; there is no reason to call it 'the' convoy - and as the video is titled 'Typical day in Donbass', it seems that there should be many many such convoys, rendering the presence of one without a BUK completely unremarkable.

Your standards for evidence that can be claimed to support your position are remarkably lax, for someone who is so incredibly picky about the evidence presented that doesn't support your position.

 

[tupac chopra]

All debunked. https://hectorreban.wordpress.com/2015/08/01/17-july-buk-sightings-planting-evidence-in-advance/

Here is the convoy. There is not a buk in it.
[YOUTUBE]https://youtu.be/4Co587-K4Qc[/YOUTUBE]

That is A convoy; there is no reason to call it 'the' convoy - and as the video is titled 'Typical day in Donbass',

Incorrect again.

it seems that there should be many many such convoys, rendering the presence of one without a BUK completely unremarkable.

What you imagine should be the case and what is the case are two different things

 

[Tom Sawyer]

it seems that there should be many many such convoys, rendering the presence of one without a BUK completely unremarkable.

What you imagine should be the case and what is the case are two different things

Well, if somebody shoots a video of a convoy driving through town and titles that 'Typical day in Donbass', why would you consider the presence of a convoy driving through Donbass to be so atypical that this was the only one?