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

[tupac chopra]

Do you need to always try to make things personal? Why not just discuss the evidence?

I'm not trying to make things personal;

Maybe you are but you don't realize it. I'd be grateful if you reconsidered . Thanks

 

[Will Wiley]

Except , yet again we have no real evidence of this second mysterious convoy. All the stuff you and Bellingcat need just doesn't exist.
Aren't you even the least bit skeptical that we have photos and videos of everything, that can be verified, except the particular ones you need?

Did you bother reading my post? The social media sightings I referred to didn't talk about tanks. They talked about a tracked vehicle on a trailer, and regular vehicles. And we have multiple photos and videos from different sources, so obviously the BUK and the truck existed. Just because you show a video of another convoy of tanks on the same day in no way disproves anything..

Jayjay, let's look at one of the reports. I comes from Dmitri Tymchuk, head¨Information Resistance¨.which is clearly some kind of Russian hating ultra nationalist group.
http://euromaidanpress.com/author/informationresistance/
It is supposed to have

3 tanks, 2 armored personnel carriers (or Russian BTR’s), a cargo truck with insurgents (maybe an Ural) and a cargo truck with a mounted heavy machine gun (likely the KAMAZ). And of course the non-driving BUK loaded on a low-loader.

But every video or photo of this convoy fails to show the buk. Every single one. Here is one example
[YOUTUBE]https://youtu.be/I0tkiyKXvwY[/YOUTUBE]
Here is the social media message.

 

[Will Wiley]

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.

No they had this piece, you are getting it confused with another piece.

We don't know where this piece fits, or what those holes really are.

We know from the ribs where it was alligned.

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.

It shows damage from pre formed fragments travelling longitudinally

 

[Jayjay]

Except , yet again we have no real evidence of this second mysterious convoy. All the stuff you and Bellingcat need just doesn't exist.
Aren't you even the least bit skeptical that we have photos and videos of everything, that can be verified, except the particular ones you need?

Did you bother reading my post? The social media sightings I referred to didn't talk about tanks. They talked about a tracked vehicle on a trailer, and regular vehicles. And we have multiple photos and videos from different sources, .

You have zero photos of such a convoy. Which is why you haven't posted any.
We have dozens of photos and videos of the convoy and lots of other things, but not one your missing buk, that is from that day. Strangely the very ones you need don't exist

What do you mean there are no photos? This started with discussion of the Paris Match photo, which clearly exists even if you'd rather it didn't. The tweets from people saying that they saw a truck with a trailer and someting that looks like a BUK on it is verification that it was likely taken on the same day as Paris Match says it was (not that Paris Match would have any reason to lie about it anyway).

Of course you can say that there are no other photos from Donetsk, but that just leaves to infinite regress. If somehow a new photo of a BUK in Donetsk were to surface, you'd just ask for a third photo, and that would go on because no amount of evidence could convince you. We need to make do with whatever limited records were made which leaves some holes and uncertainties, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Your argument is basically same that creationists use about missing links and transitional forms. When paleontologists find a transitional form C between species A and B, the creationists will just complain twice is hard about lack of missing link between A and C, and C and B.

It's pretty ridiculous for you to claim that the "stuff doesn't exist" when there's a shitload of photos, videos, witnesses, and analysis to support it. What you are doign is ignoring the brunt of the evidence while trying to shed doubt on some minor details.

I'm pointing out that your evidence doesn't pass muster. A photo that is claimed to be taken on a certain day with a clear blue sky , when it was cloudy, or with the wind blowing the wrong way for that day,posted on the site of some ultra nationalist nut or a site that was closed down 30 minutes after it opened or that came from the SBU doesn't count.

Good thing that these weren't posted on such accounts. As for cloudiness, you can see for yourself in the DigitalGlobe photo that Bellingcat published that it wasn't.

Those are the only photos/videos you have. And when you look for one of your fantasy convoy, you don't even have one, despite the fact we have loads of the real convoy that day

Who said it was a convoy? It may have been, but I'm only claiming that it was a low-rider truck with a BUK on it. You are the one who's claiming that it was part of some convoy of tanks. As for loads of evidence for the other convoy, so far you have given one video. How many other people spotted it in Donetsk? Besides, I'd expect there to be more recordings of it becuase a convoy of tanks is more likely to be caught on tape than a single truck.

 

[Jayjay]

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

It would if they made it after they had all the other "evidence"

The social media sightings were done before the plane fell down, so those are not possible to have been forged afterwards. As for photos, then you'd need to have someone drive that truck with a BUK on it in rebel-held territory, at a time when a freaking plane had just been brought down and everyone is looking for whodunnit, and A) not be stopped by the rebels, and B) not be photographed or spotted by anyone else who might report it. Or you could use old photos, but that just raises the same questions why nobody saw it or reported it before the accident. That could work for one isolated photo, but when you have more of them the forgery becomes exponentially more difficult to pull off.

"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."

Also note, most of the photos and videos are taken before the disaster.

Well, 2 weeks before is "before" too.

Yes, and that's why verification is important. But also, if there was a BUK driving from Donetsk to Snihzne two weeks before, why didn't anyone report it then? It sounds rather unlikely.

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?

They saw it just fine, they just did not pay much attention at the time.
Now, Paris Match said they took the picture themselves and it was pure luck. This is pretty serious indication that thing was driving there at that time. But then all that talk about freelancer, wrong position and time. This picture is still not dated well enough. Who actually took the picture and when it was in possession of Paris Match? Ukrainian freelancer? was he working at SBU at the time too?

Disinformation. Who said it was a freelancer? Some bloggers, it's not confirmed as far as I know. Paris Match did get the position wrong, but corrected it, which is hardly remarkable as mistakes like that happen all the time. The timing has not been disputed by anyone, but what the heck, let's add mere suspicion to the laundry list. ... and then we get to allegation that the photographer was an agent of SBU too even if you haven't said who else is. With zero evidence to support any of these clais of course.

That's how disinformation works: One starts by making up crazy allegations of a conspiracy, and then using the mere existence of those allegations as proof that a conspiracy is afoot.

It is possible that they realized significance of that picture only after the fact and simply assigned timing they thought fit the theory but in reality was not. People have a tendency to connect the dots even there is no connection.
In any case, this seems to be the only photo which can be linked to a person who took it and that person should be questioned.
And again, apparent amount of "evidence" provided is too great for it to be operation conducted by russians. I can give you rebels, but russian army would not leave so much "evidence". Russians are not idiots this theory assumes. Assuming most of the evidence can be trusted it all looks like rebels captured more less operational BUK and then spend two weeks reading manuals and checking everything is in working order and then tried to use it completely forgetting that there are passengers planes out there.

Russians were dumb enough to peddle satellite images with falsified timestamps thinking they wouldn't be caught. Besides the facts on the ground affect how the operations happen. Maybe the intel on possible Ukrainian plane didn't come early enough for them to transport the BUK in the cover of the night for example. And it's pretty hard to transport a BUK in broad daylight through civilian areas quickly without it being spotted by someone.

 

[Jayjay]

But the DSB report was invalidated, by you, and its author's motives impugned by a single data point. Now you're citing Ukrainian propaganda?

Your standards are erratic.

No, it's your standards are erratic, you believe ukrainian side so I gave you ukrainian side.
That's fact, ukrainians have/had BUKs there.

The Russian satellite photos were falsified to show that one of the BUK's was missing from the base. So even if there were Ukrainian BUKs there, they were in a military base that had been under attack from rebels for a while and the BUKs had not moved in a while and were likely not in use.

 

[Jayjay]

Did you bother reading my post? The social media sightings I referred to didn't talk about tanks. They talked about a tracked vehicle on a trailer, and regular vehicles. And we have multiple photos and videos from different sources, so obviously the BUK and the truck existed. Just because you show a video of another convoy of tanks on the same day in no way disproves anything..

Jayjay, let's look at one of the reports. I comes from Dmitri Tymchuk, head¨Information Resistance¨.which is clearly some kind of Russian hating ultra nationalist group.
http://euromaidanpress.com/author/informationresistance/
It is supposed to have

3 tanks, 2 armored personnel carriers (or Russian BTR’s), a cargo truck with insurgents (maybe an Ural) and a cargo truck with a mounted heavy machine gun (likely the KAMAZ). And of course the non-driving BUK loaded on a low-loader.

But every video or photo of this convoy fails to show the buk. Every single one. Here is one example
[YOUTUBE]https://youtu.be/I0tkiyKXvwY[/YOUTUBE]
Here is the social media message.
View attachment 4633

Do note that the message was made after the disaster. So, let's be gracious and say that the BUK mention was made up because at the time of posting, it was already speculated if not known that MH17 was shot down with ground-to-air missile. In that case, lying (or semi-deliberately conflating two earlier reports together because it feeds the pro-Ukrainian narrative) makes sense, and we should indeed be wary of it. So I concede, maybe the BUK was inserted afterwards into a convoy of which it was never part of. But just maybe, because it is still possible that the tanks were just slower and the truck went ahead to catch a plane in Snihzne.

But the posts we are discussing were made in the morning, before MH17 was downed. Why would someone add a random BUK there? What's the motivation? You are still focusing not on the fact whether there was a BUK spotted in Donetsk, but the apparently false association of that BUK with the convoy of tanks. You are making a convincing case that the BUK was not part of that convoy, but that's not really the issue.

 

[Jayjay]

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.

No they had this piece, you are getting it confused with another piece.

We don't know where this piece fits, or what those holes really are.

We know from the ribs where it was alligned.

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.

It shows damage from pre formed fragments travelling longitudinally

We only have Almaz-Antey's word on that, which is why some verification would be in order. I am a bit pressed on time so will get back to you on whether it was on the DSB report, if I can.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

nm

 

[barbos]

No, it's your standards are erratic, you believe ukrainian side so I gave you ukrainian side.
That's fact, ukrainians have/had BUKs there.

The Russian satellite photos were falsified to show that one of the BUK's was missing from the base. So even if there were Ukrainian BUKs there, they were in a military base that had been under attack from rebels for a while and the BUKs had not moved in a while and were likely not in use.

What does it have to do with anything?
And I am not even sure anything was falsified.
They had shitload of BUKs all over the place. And radars were ON. This is all I am saying.

 

[barbos]

It would if they made it after they had all the other "evidence"

The social media sightings were done before the plane fell down, so those are not possible to have been forged afterwards. As for photos, then you'd need to have someone drive that truck with a BUK on it in rebel-held territory, at a time when a freaking plane had just been brought down and everyone is looking for whodunnit, and A) not be stopped by the rebels, and B) not be photographed or spotted by anyone else who might report it. Or you could use old photos, but that just raises the same questions why nobody saw it or reported it before the accident. That could work for one isolated photo, but when you have more of them the forgery becomes exponentially more difficult to pull off.

"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."

Also note, most of the photos and videos are taken before the disaster.

Well, 2 weeks before is "before" too.

Yes, and that's why verification is important. But also, if there was a BUK driving from Donetsk to Snihzne two weeks before, why didn't anyone report it then? It sounds rather unlikely.

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?

They saw it just fine, they just did not pay much attention at the time.
Now, Paris Match said they took the picture themselves and it was pure luck. This is pretty serious indication that thing was driving there at that time. But then all that talk about freelancer, wrong position and time. This picture is still not dated well enough. Who actually took the picture and when it was in possession of Paris Match? Ukrainian freelancer? was he working at SBU at the time too?

Disinformation.

How? I merely asking the question. It's not unheard of freelancers making fraudulent photos.

Who said it was a freelancer? Some bloggers, it's not confirmed as far as I know.

Why was not it confirmed or denied?
It's very curious why they appear do not follow this. I would not be surprised if criminal investigation would throw this "evidence" away because they will not be able to find the author.
Reminds me Odessa incident, lots of western papers said a lot of things which was not true at all.

Paris Match did get the position wrong, but corrected it, which is hardly remarkable as mistakes like that happen all the time. The timing has not been disputed by anyone, but what the heck, let's add mere suspicion to the laundry list. ... and then we get to allegation that the photographer was an agent of SBU too even if you haven't said who else is. With zero evidence to support any of these clais of course.

That's how disinformation works: One starts by making up crazy allegations of a conspiracy, and then using the mere existence of those allegations as proof that a conspiracy is afoot.

It is possible that they realized significance of that picture only after the fact and simply assigned timing they thought fit the theory but in reality was not. People have a tendency to connect the dots even there is no connection.
In any case, this seems to be the only photo which can be linked to a person who took it and that person should be questioned.
And again, apparent amount of "evidence" provided is too great for it to be operation conducted by russians. I can give you rebels, but russian army would not leave so much "evidence". Russians are not idiots this theory assumes. Assuming most of the evidence can be trusted it all looks like rebels captured more less operational BUK and then spend two weeks reading manuals and checking everything is in working order and then tried to use it completely forgetting that there are passengers planes out there.

Russians were dumb enough to peddle satellite images with falsified timestamps thinking they wouldn't be caught. Besides the facts on the ground affect how the operations happen. Maybe the intel on possible Ukrainian plane didn't come early enough for them to transport the BUK in the cover of the night for example. And it's pretty hard to transport a BUK in broad daylight through civilian areas quickly without it being spotted by someone.

Provide the link where officials peddle these images. Forget about that, prove that belingcat images are really from around July 17

And don't confuse military operation with bullshitting on the web.
I still maintain that evil russians are more competent military wise than you think.
As for bullshitting I think russians have a simple approach of "If you bullshit me I will bullshit you back"
That's not nice and maybe counterproductive but that's what they do. I mean John Kerry bullshitted them, and they bullshitted back.

 

[barbos]

http://www.spiegel.de/international...s-of-russian-mh17-manipulation-a-1037125.html

I understand that this bellingcat character initially claimed photoshop job based on metadata in images, then when it was pointed out to him that it was stupid (BTW, that IS stupid ) he bought dated satellite images and claimed that terrain looked different therefore time must be different. I would like a second opinion on that before trashing russians.

 

[Will Wiley]

No they had this piece, you are getting it confused with another piece.

We don't know where this piece fits, or what those holes really are.

We know from the ribs where it was alligned.

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.

It shows damage from pre formed fragments travelling longitudinally

We only have Almaz-Antey's word on that, which is why some verification would be in order. I am a bit pressed on time so will get back to you on whether it was on the DSB report, if I can.

No problem You can see AA's slideshow here. http://www.scribd.com/doc/284722224/Slideshow-van-Almaz-Antey

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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?

Cool it with the logic WMDs, you're not supposed to blow him out of the water so totally!

 

[Will Wiley]

Some time ago the Russians said that if the investigation team analysed the chemical composition of the warheads they would be able to tell exactly where they were made, the exact factory. Seems simple enough.
Well today in the questioning of the DSB they were asked (I'm told by a Dutchman who tuned in), that some one asked this very question.
The DSB replied that no they did not compare the chemical composition because warheads were maded in various different factories in both Russia and Ukraine so, and heres the weird bit, analysing this would not tell them anything!

If that's the case then either the DSB is unbelievably stupid or they don't want to know who did it.

 

[Jayjay]

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.

No they had this piece, you are getting it confused with another piece.

I went back to the report and to double-check your claim. It's false. This part is actually same as this one, just from different side:

The DSB report on page 56 states:

Upper left hand cockpit fuselage (1)
A portion of the cockpit fuselage's top section (STA236.5 to STA332.5) was located in the south-western region of site 1 (Figure 15). This part was not recovered.

After the RT documentary, DSB made a request to hand it over and they may have it now, but the report was out by then already.

We don't know where this piece fits, or what those holes really are.

We know from the ribs where it was alligned.

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.

It shows damage from pre formed fragments travelling longitudinally

Says who? Here is a higher resolution picture without the Almaz-Antey pointers. You'll see that some of the holes that they are suggesting are longitudinal, in fact aren't. There aren't any holes in the "ribs" where one could conclusively show that the fragment that made it came through another rib, and with individual holes sayign that they are longitudinal is just guesswork.

 

[tupac chopra]

You'll see that some of the holes that they are suggesting are longitudinal, in fact aren't.

All the ones with arrows look longditudinal. the ones without arrows don't.

There aren't any holes in the "ribs" where one could conclusively show that the fragment that made it came through another rib,

Why would they need to come through two ribs?

and with individual holes sayign that they are longitudinal is just guesswork.

Pretty strong case when you look at the rest of the material in that slide show.

 

[Jayjay]

The Russian satellite photos were falsified to show that one of the BUK's was missing from the base. So even if there were Ukrainian BUKs there, they were in a military base that had been under attack from rebels for a while and the BUKs had not moved in a while and were likely not in use.

What does it have to do with anything?
And I am not even sure anything was falsified.
They had shitload of BUKs all over the place. And radars were ON. This is all I am saying.

How do you know that they had shitloads of BUKs all over the place? Or that they had radars on? That would imply the separate radar units, as the BUK launcher only has a directional targeting radar and it doesn't make sense to use that unless you know where to look.

 

[Ford]

They had shitload of BUKs all over the place. And radars were ON. This is all I am saying.

How do you know that they had shitloads of BUKs all over the place?

That's what the Kremlin told him.

Or that they had radars on?

That's what the Kremlin told him.

That would imply the separate radar units, as the BUK launcher only has a directional targeting radar and it doesn't make sense to use that unless you know where to look.

Irrelevant. Any attempt to question the Kremlin must be either refuted or ignored.

Remember, the topic of this thread is the fact that the Kremlin absolutely does not want any further investigation into MH-17, and as such you will not get anyone who gets their talking points from the Kremlin to contradict or even question the official line from Moscow.

Nobody from the pro-Kremlin side here will part from the Russian propaganda. Ever. Whatever Putin says, they'll defend it for as long as this forum exists.


I guess what I'm saying here is that you've made a valiant effort, but you are wasting your time. You will never, ever get an inch from barbos or tupac or Will. You could show them a video of the launch with easily identifiable Russian soldiers with their finger on the trigger and they'd still deny that Russia had anything whatsoever to do with MH-17.

 

[Jayjay]

The social media sightings were done before the plane fell down, so those are not possible to have been forged afterwards. As for photos, then you'd need to have someone drive that truck with a BUK on it in rebel-held territory, at a time when a freaking plane had just been brought down and everyone is looking for whodunnit, and A) not be stopped by the rebels, and B) not be photographed or spotted by anyone else who might report it. Or you could use old photos, but that just raises the same questions why nobody saw it or reported it before the accident. That could work for one isolated photo, but when you have more of them the forgery becomes exponentially more difficult to pull off.

"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."

Also note, most of the photos and videos are taken before the disaster.

Well, 2 weeks before is "before" too.

Yes, and that's why verification is important. But also, if there was a BUK driving from Donetsk to Snihzne two weeks before, why didn't anyone report it then? It sounds rather unlikely.

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?

They saw it just fine, they just did not pay much attention at the time.
Now, Paris Match said they took the picture themselves and it was pure luck. This is pretty serious indication that thing was driving there at that time. But then all that talk about freelancer, wrong position and time. This picture is still not dated well enough. Who actually took the picture and when it was in possession of Paris Match? Ukrainian freelancer? was he working at SBU at the time too?

Disinformation.

How? I merely asking the question. It's not unheard of freelancers making fraudulent photos.

Who said it was a freelancer? Some bloggers, it's not confirmed as far as I know.

Why was not it confirmed or denied?
It's very curious why they appear do not follow this. I would not be surprised if criminal investigation would throw this "evidence" away because they will not be able to find the author.

A criminal investigation would have better means to find the photographer. The paper is not under obligation to reveal the names of their team to the public just because someone asks, although generally it would be a good practise to do so.

As for whether the photographer was a freelancer or directly employed by Paris Match, nobody has asked the paper. It's just something some blogger said, and which I repeated in my stupidity. This is exactly how these silly conspiracy theories rise... someone makes a stupid claim, then assumes that he is entitled to an answer from highest echelons of power, and when no such answer is forthcoming then there must be a conspiracy. Although in most cases the far simpler explanation is that people in those higher echelons (in this case, Paris Match) just don't give a crap about some bloggers on the internet because they have deadlines and other stories to write. I don't even know if anyone has actually asked Paris Match for the name or natonality of the photographer.

Paris Match did get the position wrong, but corrected it, which is hardly remarkable as mistakes like that happen all the time. The timing has not been disputed by anyone, but what the heck, let's add mere suspicion to the laundry list. ... and then we get to allegation that the photographer was an agent of SBU too even if you haven't said who else is. With zero evidence to support any of these clais of course.

That's how disinformation works: One starts by making up crazy allegations of a conspiracy, and then using the mere existence of those allegations as proof that a conspiracy is afoot.

It is possible that they realized significance of that picture only after the fact and simply assigned timing they thought fit the theory but in reality was not. People have a tendency to connect the dots even there is no connection.
In any case, this seems to be the only photo which can be linked to a person who took it and that person should be questioned.
And again, apparent amount of "evidence" provided is too great for it to be operation conducted by russians. I can give you rebels, but russian army would not leave so much "evidence". Russians are not idiots this theory assumes. Assuming most of the evidence can be trusted it all looks like rebels captured more less operational BUK and then spend two weeks reading manuals and checking everything is in working order and then tried to use it completely forgetting that there are passengers planes out there.

Russians were dumb enough to peddle satellite images with falsified timestamps thinking they wouldn't be caught. Besides the facts on the ground affect how the operations happen. Maybe the intel on possible Ukrainian plane didn't come early enough for them to transport the BUK in the cover of the night for example. And it's pretty hard to transport a BUK in broad daylight through civilian areas quickly without it being spotted by someone.

Provide the link where officials peddle these images. Forget about that, prove that belingcat images are really from around July 17

Russian ministry of defense peddled false satellite images on its July 21st 2014 press conference. In particular, this image is probably falsely dated to July 17th even though it was taken earlier:

Now, as for why the bellingcat images that they got from Google Earth and Digital Globe should be trusted, presumably because anyone can check them. The DigitalGlobe one is just a matter of buying the rights to publish them. If they were not from July 17th, that would be either too easy to debunk (cough up a few thousand bucks and show them wrong), or DigitalGlobe is in on the conspiracy.

And don't confuse military operation with bullshitting on the web.
I still maintain that evil russians are more competent military wise than you think.
As for bullshitting I think russians have a simple approach of "If you bullshit me I will bullshit you back"
That's not nice and maybe counterproductive but that's what they do. I mean John Kerry bullshitted them, and they bullshitted back.

As someone pointed out already, the BUK operation was pretty competently done. They hit the target head on, they were smart enough to not transport the BUK as part of a huge separatist convoy (actually, the convoy of tanks might have served as a diversion), they were able to get in and out and get the BUK back to Russia with almost nobody catching it on camera.

What I was suggesting was just reasonable limitations of the particular operation. The BUK had no radar support and had to use its own targeting radar only. There were time constraints, and the whole thing had to happen quickly and in broad daylight. Competent or not, the Russian soldiers are not magicians.