DISINFO: Bellingcat is a part of information war against Russia
SUMMARY
Russia is accused for the MH17 tragedy without any evidence. Russia was denied the presumption of innocence the very next day when Obama announced that Russia was responsible. Moreover the Bellingcat agency which regularly releases so called “new evidence” to stoke the discussion, was established two days before the downing of MH17. It is not a question of who is guilty for the tragedy, as no one can answer that, but it is a question of how these “information dumps” are designed.
RESPONSE
Conspiracy theory to support one of the many recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about the downing of MH17.
Bellingcat is an independent international collective of researchers, investigators and citizen journalists using open source and social media investigation to probe a variety of subjects – from Mexican drug lords and crimes against humanity, to tracking the use of chemical weapons and conflicts worldwide. Bellingcat discovered key information about the downing of MH17, including tracking the missile launcher that shot down MH17 from its base in Russia to Ukraine, locating the field where the missile was launched from, and identifying a number of suspects involved with the incident. Bellingcat's findings that the Russian military was involved were later corroborated by international investigators.
The criminal investigation of the downing of MH17 by the Joint Investigation Team has been ongoing since 2014. On 28 September 2016, the JIT announced that flight MH17 was shot down by a missile from the 9M38 series, which was launched by a BUK TELAR system. The system was transported from the Russian Federation to an agricultural field near the town of Pervomaiskyi in Eastern Ukraine, from where the missile was launched. After firing, the system - with 1 missing missile - went back to the Russian Federation. On the 24th of May 2018, the JIT announced its conclusion the BUK TELAR used to shoot down MH17 came from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, a unit of the Russian armed forces from Kursk in the Russian Federation.