Or is it because every eyewitness interviewed by the BBC
team specifically indicated the presence of a Ukrainian military
aircraft right beside the Malaysian Airlines Boeing MH17 at the time
that it was shot down?
Or is it because of eyewitness accounts confirming that
the Ukrainian air force regularly used civilian aircraft flying over
Novorossiya as human shields to protect its military aircraft conducting
strikes against the civilian population from the Militia’s anti-aircraft units?
Highlights of Witness statements (see complete transcript below)
Eyewitness #1: There
were two explosions in the air. And this is how it broke apart. And [the
fragments] blew apart like this, to the sides. And when …
Eyewitness #2: … And there was another aircraft, a military one, beside it. Everybody saw it.
Eyewitness #1: Yes, yes. It was flying under it, because it could be seen. It was proceeding underneath, below the civilian one.
Eyewitness #3: There
were sounds of an explosion. But they were in the sky. They came from
the sky. Then this plane made a sharp turn-around like this. It changed
its trajectory and headed in that direction [indicating the direction
with her hands].
Video: The Catastrophe of #MH17: #BBC in the Search of the “#BUK”
Introductory Paragraphs to the BBC Video Report
by slavyangrad.wordpress.com
Intro of BBC Report (For Full Transcript see below)
The “black boxes” of the crashed
Malaysian Boeing have finally been transferred into the hands of the
experts. However, how much can they tell us?
The recorders logged the coordinates
and the heading of the aircraft at the time of the incident and may have
recorded the sound of the explosion. However, they will not tell us
what exactly caused the explosion.
The inhabitants of the nearby
villages are certain that they saw military aircraft in the sky shortly
prior to the catastrophe. According to them, it actually was the jet
fighters that brought down the Boeing.
The Ukrainian government rejects this
version of events. They believe that the Boeing was shot down using a
missile from a “BUK” complex that came in from Russia.
The Ukrainian Security Service has
published photographs and a video, which, in its opinion, prove that the
Boeing was shot down with a “BUK” missile.
BBC reporter Olga Ivshina and
producer Oksana Vozhdayeva decided to find the place from which the
missile was allegedly launched.
Original BBC Video Report: Preserved by Google Web-cache
Transcript of the BBC Video Report
DPR Representative: Here it is.
Olga Ivshina, BBC: The black boxes from the crashed
Boeing are finally being transferred into the hands of the experts.
However, how much can they tell us?
The recorders logged the coordinates and the heading of the aircraft
at the time of the incident and may have recorded the sound of the
explosion. However, they will not tell us what exactly caused the
explosion.
The inhabitants of the nearby villages are certain that they saw
military aircraft in the sky shortly prior to the catastrophe. According
to them, it actually was the jet fighters that brought down the Boeing.
Eyewitness #1: There were two explosions in the air.
And this is how it broke apart. And [the fragments] blew apart like
this, to the sides. And when …
Eyewitness #2: … And there was another aircraft, a military one, beside it. Everybody saw it.
Eyewitness #1: Yes, yes. It was flying under it, because it could be seen. It was proceeding underneath, below the civilian one.
Eyewitness #3: There were sounds of an explosion.
But they were in the sky. They came from the sky. Then this plane made a
sharp turn-around like this. It changed its trajectory and headed in
that direction [indicating the direction with her hands].
Olga Ivshina, BBC: The Ukrainian government rejects
this version of events. They believe that the Boeing was shot down using
a missile from a “BUK” complex that came in from the direction of
Russia.
Vitaliy Naida, Department of Counterintelligence of SBU [Ukrainian Security Service]: This was a BUK M1 system from which the aircraft was shot down. It came to Ukraine early in the morning on the 17
th
of July. It was delivered by a tow truck to the city of Donetsk. After
that, it was redeployed from Donetsk, as part of a column of military
equipment, to the area of the city of Torez, to the area of Snezhnoye,
to the area of Pervomaisk.
Olga Ivshina, BBC: The Ukrainian Security Service
has published photographs and a video, which, in its opinion, prove that
the Boeing was shot down with a “BUK” missile. We attempted to verify
these photographs and information at the location.
One of the photographs showed a landscape not far from the city of
Torez, on which smoke could be seen coming from the presumed location of
the missile’s launch. We attempted to find this location, and it
appears that we were successful.
We are now on the outskirts of the city of Torez. Behind me,
approximately five kilometres away, is the city of Snezhnoye. And the
landscape here matches the landscape that we can see on the photograph
published by the Ukrainian Security Service.
To find the place from which the smoke was allegedly coming from, we
adopted as markers these three poplars and the group of trees.
Presumably, this is the place that can be seen on the photograph
published by the SBU. And here are our markers: the three solitary
poplars and the small group of trees in the distance.
The smoke that can be seen on the photograph came from somewhere over
there [pointing behind her], behind my back. The SBU believes that this
is a trace coming from the launch of a “BUK” missile.
However, it must be noted that there are here, approximately in the
same place, the Saur-Mogila memorial, near which the fighting continues
almost unabated, and a coalmine. It turns out that the smoke with the
same degree of probability could have been coming from
any of these locations.
Having circled around the nearby fields, we were unable to find any
traces of a missile launch. Nor did the local inhabitants that we
encountered see any “BUK” either.
At the ruins of an apartment building in the city of Snezhnoye, the
topic of the jet fighters that may have been escorting civilian aircraft
comes up again. A bomb dropped from above took away the lives of eleven
civilians here.
Sergey Godovanets, Commander of the Militia of the city of Snezhnoye:
They use these civilian aircraft to hide behind them. It is only now
that they stopped flying over us – but, usually, civilian aircraft would
always fly above us. And they hide [behind them]. [The experience in]
Slavyansk had demonstrated that they would fly out from behind a
civilian aircraft, bomb away, and then hide, once again, behind the
civilian aircraft and fly away.
Olga Ivshina, BBC: The commander of the local
militia emphasizes that they have no weaponry capable of shooting down a
jet fighter [flying] at a significant height. However, he says that if
such weaponry were to appear, they would have tried to.
Sergey Godovanets: If we know that it is not a civilian aircraft, but a military one, then – yes.
Olga Ivshina, BBC: So, could the Boeing have been
shot down by the militias that had mistaken it for a military aircraft?
There is as yet no unequivocal confirmation of either this or any other
version [of what took place]. The international experts are just
beginning their work with the information obtained from the crashed
airliner. It now appears that it is difficult to overstate the
importance of this investigation. Olga Ivshina, BBC.
The Catastrophe of #MH17:
