Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was going to fly from Nederland to Malaysia and possibly from there to Australia. Flight plan was reasonably normal: some companies, such as British Airways and Air France had stopped using it, but Singapore Airlines was flying one minute and 40 seconds behind this flight.
Who shot the plane down?
There is ample evidence that it was East Ukraine rebels/separatists that did it. There are plenty of conflicting rumors to other parties, but those are not even worth of disputing here.
Where did separatists get their weapons?
This is the most critical question of all.
What happened was that Putin decided to arm separatists with better weaponry and this scheme took a few months or at least over one month to play:
1) Russian media told to the world that separatists had stolen this weaponry from Ukraine army. They have it so this is possible to happen. Ukraine government denies this.
2) Russia delivers those weapons to separatists about a week before they used it.
3) Russian air control closes four flight routes over East Ukraine a few hours before the shooting.
4) Either separatists or Russian military was those that did the actual shooting from East Ukraine.
Did separatists get any training from Russia for shooting down airplanes?
Yes, read the article from ABCNews.
So this whole thing was masterminded by Putin?
Yes. Who else controls Russian media, Russia weapons, Russian army and Russian air control?
Did they want to shoot down commercial flight or military plane?
Military plane.
The Russian organization masterminding this shooting apparently have not practiced this as they did many things badly:
- They left the timing extremely tight. Russian air control shut down routes over East Ukraine from their side only a few hours before the shooting.
- This caused MH17 to alter their flight plan to a place where commercial planes do not fly normally, so the militants didn't expect commercial planes in that place.
- No one from the organization either knew about a system to follow commercial planes, or they didn't want any traces that they had been active on that site. Either way militants didn't follow the site to know that commercial planes are there now and more than just this one.
Did Ukraine do something wrong?
Most likely yes, their intelligence knew something was going on. How much they knew and how much in advance is unknown, but the Ukraine air control did two changes requiring flight to raise over 10 kilometers. Apparently this was a communications gap and the people making decision thought that separatists had weapons only up to 6 kilometers, not to 15 kilometers the way they did have. So it was a mistake, but in my book an honest mistake.
Did CIA do something wrong?
Most likely yes, it seems that they informed close allies: Britain & France to watch out, but didn't make public announcements. Probably to protect their sources or from letting Russia and separatists to know how much they know.
Why Malaysian Airlines?
No reason, except that Malaysia is not close Russia or USA ally.
Why did the plane fly over 200 km too South from the original route (L980)?
Because they were flying on channel L980, but Russian air control closed that route, or their part of it A87, so the plane had to divert from the original plan.
Did the Singapore Airlines (SQ351) fly on the original route or on the modified MH17 route?
It appears on the modified route, but I am not sure. The source, Swedish newspaper Sydsvenkan, said it was flying 25 kilometers behind the Malaysian plane, which makes one minute and 40 seconds. Btw it was a joined flight with SAS (SAS is a Nordic company, and especially because of this Sydsvenkan is reputable source on this) and Virgin Australia and Boeing 777 with 285 seats. Other source: Expressen, another Swedish magazine.
Why did the separatist leader say that people on Malaysian Airlines were dead already?
This is common practice in Russia: there is a saying that if you want to lie, you better lie more outrageously as people believe outrageous lies easier. Naturally this was a lie still.
Who is leading these Ukraine militants?
Igor Girkin (Strelkov): "FSB until March 2013, and according to Ukrainian and EU authorities, he is a retired Russian military intelligence GRU colonel who has previously participated in the 2014 Crimea crisis."
Igor Vsevolodovich Girkin (Russian: Игорь Всеволодович Гиркин), also known as Igor Ivanovich Strelkov (Russian: Игорь Иванович Стрелков), born on 17 December 1970,[1] is a Russian citizen from Moscow[2] who commands the Donbass People's Militia paramilitary group and is a key figure behind the 2014 pro-Russian conflict in Ukraine.
According to Russian papers, he is fighting against fascists in Ukraine, but he is fascist himself: "during the 1990s, Girkin wrote for the right-wing Russian newspaper Zavtra, which is run by the Russian nationalist Alexander Prokhanov" and where Borodai was an editor.[16]". So naturally that is just a bad cover story that doesn't sit well on him.
So when Putin says that he has no control over the militants, remember that his hired man is at least officially the top #1 among the Ukraine militants.
Yes, Putin should get an honorary master's degree on western media manipulation as he plays them so well. And here his tactics are to appear to support this while he does everything to hinder the actual process.
What is the status of investigations?
As of July 21, the status is that European organization, ETYJ is leading the investigations. Also Malaysian and Netherlands authorities are involved. Clearly Malaysian and Netherlands authorities are the most neutral on this topic, and therefore militants were sure to give airplane black boxes to them.
Ukraine government has taken corpses and they plan to send them to Netherlands as the plane left from Netherlands. Largest group dying in the accident was of Netherlands nationality.
Militants have declared crashing site as safe area.
