Report from our national newspaper "The Australian"
Putin’s hand is all over the MH17 catastrophe
PAUL DIBB
The Australian
July 21, 2014 12:00AM
TRUE to form, President Vladimir Putin is resorting to lying about Russia’s involvement in the tragic shooting down of Malaysian Airways Flight MH17.
He claims that “the government over whose territory it occurred is responsible for this terrible tragedy” and that MH17 would not have been downed had there not been cινιℓ ωαr in the southeast of Ukraine, a conflict he has repeatedly pinned on the government in Kiev.
This is all a classical KGB colonel’s deception, disguising (maskirovka) his true intent. Russia is deeply involved in providing weapons and infiltrating “Russian volunteers” into the east of Ukraine in an effort to destabilise the government in Kiev
These are the facts. First, there is impeccable evidence the missile that brought down the Malaysians flight was an SA-11 (Russian designation Buk) ground-to-air missile with a speed of mach three, or three times the speed of sound.
It has an operational ceiling in excess of 76,000 feet, or more than double the height of the ill-fated Malaysian airliner. And it was undoubtedly fired from a position well within rebel held territory in southeastern Ukraine. All these facts are well known to Australian intelligence, including from our access to US satellite information.
What is not clear is how the pro-Russian secessionists got hold of what is a significantly advanced weapon system. Was it given to them by the Russians or did they capture it from the Ukrainian military? It would need some practice and training to launch this weapon system accurately.
Were the rebels trained by the Russians or did elements of the Russian military actually press the button? We need to remember that there are large numbers of Russian troops — perhaps 10,000 to 12,000 — poised on Ukraine’s eastern borders.
Moreover, it is a short distance from the area of the missile launch to the Russian border.
Second, the rebel communications that the Ukrainian authorities have intercepted sound authentic: they record discussion of the destruction of the aircraft and debate about whether it is a Ukrainian military cargo plane carrying weapons, and then the realisation that it was a Malaysian civil airliner carrying a large number of civilians. The question here is how the pro-Russian secessionists could have confused such different types of aircraft, in particular one that was flying eastwards and would very soon — in a matter of 10 or so minutes — have crossed the border to fly across Russian territory on its way over Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India to Kuala Lumpur. That much would have been apparent and would have made absolutely no sense.
Third, we need to ask ourselves if anybody stands to gain from this barbarous act. Clearly, it will rebound against any sympathy in the West for the pro-Russian secessionists. But for Putin it could well be a different matter. By now effectively closing down all the air space in the eastern part of Ukraine he has taken another step closer to effectively detaching an area from Kharkov in the north to Donetsk in the south from Kiev’s control and making it a Russian sphere of influence. This is his minimalist geopolitical aim.
Whether or not this was a deliberate act of violence against innocent people or a genuine case of confusion and mistaken identity is not the point. The point is that if Russia had not fomented instability and violence in eastern Ukraine this would never have happened. Since March this year and the overthrow of the pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych, Putin has tried his best to ensure the new government in Kiev would not try to join the EU and — even more importantly — not become a member of NATO.
This is because Putin is hostile to what he perceives as an ever expanding NATO aimed at encircling Russia. Preventing this from happening is his core national interest and one way of securing it is to partition the Ukraine and detach the heavily Russian-speaking eastern part of that country either by force or by coercion.
Some commentators in Australia are inclined to excuse Russia’s hostility towards the new Ukrainian government and even argue that this tragedy could have been averted if the authorities in Kiev had agreed to a ceasefire with the rebels, who were killing Ukrainian troops and shooting down their helicopters and military aircraft.
It would not be harsh to see such sentiments as extremely naive, reflecting as they do the Kremlin’s propaganda line.
What remains to be done? As both Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten have stressed, now is the time for a measured response ensuring that there is an absolutely impartial international investigation.
The crash site must be secured from tampering with whatever evidence might still be available and the black box recorders must be surrendered by whosoever now has them.
And there must be a review of International Civil Aviation Organisation rules about civilian airliners flying over conflict zones.
And if Russia’s hand is proven to be behind this callous act, either directly or indirectly, then relations with that country must be fundamentally reviewed.
Paul Dibb is professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/putins-hand-is-all-over-the-mh17-catastrophe/story-e6frgd0x-1226995368546