The missile launcher that blasted flight MH17 out of the sky?

19 July 2014 05:37 am Views - 15962

A picture that was taken later shows an identical rocket launcher – on a low-loader and lacking two of its missiles – being smuggled in the direction of Russia, Daily Mail reported.

It was suggested last night that the BUK will never be seen again.

Pentagon experts on Friday said it was impossible to imagine that the missile could not have been fired without Russian help.

Rear Adm. John Kirby said: 'It strains credulity to think that it could be used by separatists without at least some measure of Russian support and technical assistance.'

The first photo was taken in a residential neighbourhood of Torez, a coal-mining town ten miles from the crash site.

The BUK was pictured in a leafy corner next to a car park, near some Soviet-era apartment blocks. The peaceful scene, in the summer sunshine, belies the horror that soon followed.

The second picture appears to come from a video shot as the rocket launcher was on its way to fire the deadly missile.

Rumbling slowly along an empty road, the launcher was filmed from a few hundred yards away.
It was said to be driving toward a known pro-Russian defensive position – possibly the launch site.

Finally, another video appeared online, this time said to be showing the machine being spirited away after the attack.

Allegedly filmed by a Ukrainian intelligence agent, it shows a glimpse of the rocket launcher on the back of a low-loader lorry, travelling much faster than it could on its caterpillar tracks.

Now being driven south – toward Russia – it seems to be missing two of its four rockets, suggesting MH17 could have been downed by a double missile strike.

There have been no further sightings, and Ukrainian officials are convinced the BUK will never be seen again. One Kiev official, Anton Gerashchenko, said: ‘In the night, the BUK system from which the missile was launched was removed to Russia, where it is likely to be destroyed.’

He added he thought the ‘direct performers of the terrorist attack’ would also have been killed to avoid any witnesses. Yesterday Dr Igor Sutyagin, research fellow in Russian studies at the Royal United Services Institute, said he believed MH17 was shot down by rebels based in Torez.

He added: ‘These separatists boasted on Twitter about capturing a BUK SA11 missile launcher on June 29, and several hours before the downing of the plane, locals in Torez reported seeing BUK missile launchers and separatist flags around the city.

'Later, there was lots of video posted of the plane falling down and rebels saying that “it was not pointless moving it [the BUK] there”.’

Speculation over the source of the missile, which remains unconfirmed, has sparked a propaganda battle between both sides of the Ukraine-Russia crisis.

Officials in Kiev have made repeated statements linking the attack to pro-Russian separatists.
Tonight, Downing Street supported the claims with a statement to say it appears 'increasingly likely that MH-17 was shot down by a separatist missile' fired from near Torez, an area controlled by pro-Russian rebels.

Dr Sutyagin said a Russian former Special Forces chief had said the separatists did not have the expertise to operate the missile launchers.

He then underscored the emerging Russian link to the tragedy.

He said: 'The military leader of the Donetsk Republic, Igor Strelkov, real name Girkin, a Muscovite, a Russian citizen, posts a video of the intercept.'

This video was taken down once it was discovered that the downed plane was civilian.
The expert implicated Russia further, revealing that the former commander of Russian Air Force Special Operations Command, a Colonel-General, stated recently in an interview that the separatists did not have the expertise to operate the BUK launchers, that only Russian personnel could do so.

It's also suspicious, Dr Sutyagin said, that Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported the crash at 16.13 Moscow time, several minutes before the crash actually happened - at 16.20.

'The plane is safely in the sky, and RIA Novosti publishes information that it has been shot down,' he said.

 Dr Sutyagin also told MailOnline that information had been leaked from a source he was unwilling to name that the pilot of MH17 'felt bad' about his course over Ukranian airspace, so turned south.

Little did he know, according to Dr Sutyagin, that his plane would then be mistaken by rebels for a Ukrainian government resupply flight.
He said: 'There is a Ukrainian mechanised brigade blocked by separatists near the Russian border. It's blocked on three sides by separatists and behind the brigade is the Russian boarder, so they can't get out. The Ukrainians try to resupply them from the air by transport aircraft.

'Now, the pilot of MH17 said that he "felt bad" and wanted to change course to get out of the danger zone. But several kilometers to the south is a Ukrainian Army heavy transport plane, an IL76, or Candid, which has the same echo as a 777 on a radar screen.

'The two planes came close. They tried to shoot down the transport delivering supplies to the brigade. They believed that they had been firing at a military plane, but they mistakenly shoot down a civilian airliner.'

Interpol announced today it would fully assist the investigation of the horror.

Separatist rebels who control the crash site issued conflicting reports Friday about whether they had found the plane's black boxes or not.

'No black boxes have been found ... we hope that experts will track them down and create a picture of what has happened,' said Donetsk separatist leader Aleksandr Borodai.

Yet earlier Friday, an aide to the military leader of Borodai's group said authorities had recovered eight out of 12 recording devices.

Since planes usually have two black boxes - one for recording flight data and the other for recording cockpit voices - it was not clear what the number 12 referred to.


DID PILOT OF MH17 DIVERT INTO HOSTILE TERRITORY?

The pilot of MH17 radioed that he 'felt uncomfortable' about the route he was flying while over Ukraine and tragically altered his course to hostile territory, where Russian separatist missile operators mistook his plane for a government military transport aircraft, according to an expert.
Dr Igor Sutyagin, Research Fellow in Russian Studies from the Royal United Services Institute, believes that MH17 was shot down by rebels based in the 3rd District of Torez, in eastern Ukraine, using a ground-to-air SA11 missile system.

He told MailOnline that information had been leaked from a source he was unwilling to name that the pilot of MH17 'felt bad' about his course over Ukrainian airspace, so turned south.
Little did he know, according to Dr Sutyagin, that his plane would then be mistaken by rebels for a Ukrainian government resupply flight.

He said: 'There is a Ukrainian mechanised brigade blocked by separatists near the Russian boarder. It's blocked on three sides by separatists and behind the brigade is the Russian boarder, so they can't get out. The Ukrainians try to resupply them from the air by transport aircraft.
'Now, the pilot of MH17 said that he "felt bad" and wanted to change course to get out of the danger zone. But several kilometers to the south is a Ukrainian Army heavy transport plane, an IL76, or Candid, which has the same echo as a 777 on a radar screen.

'The two planes came close. They tried to shoot down the transport delivering supplies to the brigade. They believed that they had been firing at a military plane, but they mistakenly shoot down a civilian airliner.'


Suspicious: Ukrainian spies reportedly filmed the launcher used in the attack being smuggled to Russia - with two missiles missing



A view of what is believed to be a BUK surface-to-air missile battery being driven along a path on July 17 in Torez, Ukraine



Launch site? The BUK missile system photographed in Torez hours before MH17 was downed



A pro-Russian militant passes by the wreckage of a Boeing 777, of Malaysia Arilines flight MH17 debris



Stunned: Ukrainians inspect the wreckage of MH17 as coal miners, farmers and other volunteers help with the grisly task of clearing up the crash sites after the Malaysia Airlines jet was shot down by a surface-to-air missile over the east of the country