Crisis in the Ukraine

[nicky]

My apologies:

Russian sources earlier today quoted unnamed MoD Ukraine officials, who informed of ongoing investigation of unsanctioned Buk firing that led to Boeing tragedy.

Several hours later Ukrainian MoD flatly denied that information.

Again, my sincere apologies.

 

[SampanViking]

My apologies:

Russian sources earlier today quoted unnamed MoD Ukraine officials, who informed of ongoing investigation of unsanctioned Buk firing that led to Boeing tragedy.

Several hours later Ukrainian MoD flatly denied that information.

Again, my sincere apologies.

Hi Nicky

Well Kudos for putting your hand up and admitting a mistake, but please take it as an instructive lesson on posting news, especially on an emotive subject such as this one.

It is important to avoid posting blogosphere gossip and tittle tattle. If you see something of interest, but without any serious sourcing or verification, wait until you do, before posting it.
Stories that have a basis in reality will soon develop their own traction.

 

[SampanViking]

Staying with the theme of please back up your assertions and allegations, I am posting two videos which deal with these very matters.

Link one is an RT piece in which the video is embedded. It relates to the US allegations yesterday that Russia fired missiles into Ukraine. At the briefing Stae Dept Spokesperson Maria Harf is subjected to testing questions by AP Journalist Mathew Lee on the subject of evidence.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

It is raw footage so no trickery.
My favourite quote from Mr Lee - "details provided in lieu of evidence"

Next Russian Defence Minister Anatoly Antonov, does not mince his words with regards to US MH17 evidence

[video=youtube_share;TRTxKVdV4Jo]http://youtu.be/TRTxKVdV4Jo[/video]

 

[SouthernSky]

I continue to shake my head at some of the naivety and assumptions being made in this thread.

 

[thunderchief]

Thinking about it, it is very unlikely that MH-17 got shoot down by accident by SAM . In order to operate Buk, S-300 or anything that could reach 10 000m , you would need to have professional military training . Systems of this kind are operated by officers and NCO , with few occasional conscripts with technical background . It is virtually impossible that someone would stumble upon Buk and then successfully complete firing sequence .

And if you do have professional military training, one of the first things you would learn is to classify target by RCS, speed, height and course . There is almost no chance professional SAM operators would have mistaken Boeing 777 for Su-24 or Su-25 , not even for An-26 (speed , height) . Only thing that could resemble passenger plane on radar are heavy bombers and large patrol and AWACS aircraft like B-52, Tu-95 etc ... But these are not part of the conflict , as far as I know .

Question then remains: cui bono ? Who would benefit from deliberately downing passenger plane ? Rebels ? I don't think so. Ukrainian government ? Well ...

 

[delft]

I continue to shake my head at some of the naivety and assumptions being made in this thread.

I have been doing so about the news presented to me over the last sixty years. Only by comparing several news stream is it possible to get an approximation of what happened. I started by comparing Dutch and Belgian broadcast news and being amazed by how different the world looked from neighboring countries using the same language.

 

[SampanViking]

I continue to shake my head at some of the naivety and assumptions being made in this thread.

Dear Southern Sky

Thank you for the best laugh I have had all day.
Here we are discussing matters which revolve around certain governments making allegations but failing to provide any credible evidence to back them up and you appear to make an allegation without any explanation or evidence to support your assertion.

For that I will overlook that your one liner is little more than a collective personal attack on a number of senior and long standing members of this forum and as such a violation of forum rules on both counts.

It would help to support such a statement with specifics examples and to highlight how we are deficient in our assessments. To quote AP's Matthew Lee, "Because I said so, is really not sufficient"

 

[plawolf]

Thinking about it, it is very unlikely that MH-17 got shoot down by accident by SAM . In order to operate Buk, S-300 or anything that could reach 10 000m , you would need to have professional military training . Systems of this kind are operated by officers and NCO , with few occasional conscripts with technical background . It is virtually impossible that someone would stumble upon Buk and then successfully complete firing sequence .

And if you do have professional military training, one of the first things you would learn is to classify target by RCS, speed, height and course . There is almost no chance professional SAM operators would have mistaken Boeing 777 for Su-24 or Su-25 , not even for An-26 (speed , height) . Only thing that could resemble passenger plane on radar are heavy bombers and large patrol and AWACS aircraft like B-52, Tu-95 etc ... But these are not part of the conflict , as far as I know .

Question then remains: cui bono ? Who would benefit from deliberately downing passenger plane ? Rebels ? I don't think so. Ukrainian government ? Well ...

USS Vincennes ring any bells?

The USS Vincennes was using equipment of roghtly similar vintage to the BUKs the rebels or Ukraine government forces are using, but the Vincennes was an Aegis cruiser so their systems should be significantly more powerful and capable than any BUK.

If the USS Vincennes can mistaken an airbus for a hostile bogy, I cannot see how anyone could be so adament that a BUK could not possibly do something similar.

I'm not saying that the shoot down was accidental, but I think it's plainly wrong to categorically exclude that possibility from consideration considering what is claimed as an impossibility actually did happen before in real life with horrifying consequences.

 

[Janiz]

Thank you for the best laugh I have had all day.
Here we are discussing matters which revolve around certain governments making allegations but failing to provide any credible evidence to back them up and you appear to make an allegation without any explanation or evidence to support your assertion.

For me it looks like a string of news from Russian MoD and RT because 'western media lie'... There's no point for discussing this matter here.

 

[Sputnik]

anti-mobilization protests in Chernivtsi Oblast
[video=youtube;FkyvWHOGTq0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkyvWHOGTq0[/video]