Malaysian Airlines MH317

[Stealhead]

I'd say technically you are what ever the nation in which you hold citizenship is. In other words a Canadian citizen is a Canadian, Russian citizen is a Russian. Of course every nation has a dominate culture as well and one can be a citizen but not necessarily be a part of the majority(controlling power/group). Ethnicity is another can of worms at the end of the day there are no nations on earth in which every single citizen is ethnically the same.

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by CCIP

One thing you want to keep in mind here is the economic angle as well. The Donbass region (Donetsk & surroundings) has always arguably been more closely linked to Russia economically than Western Ukraine. Russia has simply been the main customer of their (relatively developed) heavy industry. This certainly leads to other links. For many people living there, Russia is a "land of opportunity" as well - Russia's heavy industry, from the earliest beginnings of industrialization, has always tapped this region for its skilled labour. And to this day, many see better pay and more opportunities in Russia - and Russia tries to attract them because these Ukrainian workers are often far more skilled and ask for less pay than Russian ones. This is especially a bonus in a place like Russia, where a lot of the wealth comes from natural resources in places with pretty extreme conditions - not everyone is willing to go mining above the Arctic circle, but these Donbass miners and workers have historically proven much less picky. So, these are often people who are very welcome in Russia. There are many with family already in Russia, who moved or indeed lived throughout Russia all their life. Yet they're often not welcome in Western Ukraine, for cultural reasons, which is substantially more impoverished and has lower standards of living than the country's east anyway. And Kiev, like many capital cities, is a tough and competitive job market. So, where else to go? Refugees generally don't run to regions that they know are poorer and where they're always at a disadvantage against locals.

And then politically, I think many of these people have first-hand evidence that Ukraine is a failed state and Russia is not. Nationalist scares aside, they just have simple, objective reasons for having more confidence in the Russian state (and its ability to take care of them) than the Ukrainian one.

Not much of a conspiracy, just simple materialist logic.

All good points, thanks. It is frustrating trying to figure out what is really going on. There is so much propaganda on both sides to wade through and very few independent observers on the gound.

[TarJak]

Australia holds a national day of mourning for the victims of MH17: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-0...ictims/5653706

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

I'd say technically you are what ever the nation in which you hold citizenship is. In other words a Canadian citizen is a Canadian, Russian citizen is a Russian. Of course every nation has a dominate culture as well and one can be a citizen but not necessarily be a part of the majority(controlling power/group). Ethnicity is another can of worms at the end of the day there are no nations on earth in which every single citizen is ethnically the same.

Of course it's a can of worms, but this is a very Western way of looking at nationality, and here is something you need to realize:

The very concept of "nationality", legally and constitutionally, means something totally different in former Soviet space than it does in the West. It dates back to a Soviet-era response to Imperial-era problems, and basically it boils down to a section in the passport that says "nationality" - and by the way, that was retained in most former Soviet republics and is still there today. Nationality is ethnic-based identity that one gets partially by choice, inheriting it from one (but not both) of their parents. It is not the same as citizenship, at all. For many people in Russia, that section of their passport might say "Russian", but it might also say "Tatar", "Chuvash", "Jew", "Ukrainian", "Belarus", "Chechen", etc. etc. No sane people in post-Soviet space (I don't count ultra-nationalists as that) would even bat an eyelid at someone who is identified as being Tatar or Chuvash or Jewish in their Russian passport, that's just a normal thing. Same for Ukrainian. Same for someone who identifies as Russian living in the Ukraine. That is how things always were. The nuance is totally lost also, because while in English we say "Russian", in Russian there are actually two completely different words: "Russkiy" indicating someone of Russian nationality, and "Rossiyanin" indicating someone of Russian citizenship. Those two terms are not in any way equivalent, and there is no contradiction in that.

Nationality (or "nationality", because it means something totally different there than it does for Western commentators) is a big part of this whole issue and debate that gets totally lost here.

[CCIP]

Meanwhile, in response to Western sanctions, Russia has banned Western food imports, and blocked flights by Ukrainian airlines from transiting Russian airspace (though this is less related to MH17 and more related to the standoff over flights to Crimea - Ukraine and EU regulators forced a lease on Boeing aircraft operated by the Russian state airline on flights to Crimea to be suspended recently). They are now threatening to block Russian airspace to EU and US carriers as a next step.

[Oberon]

Blocking airspace could certainly be tricky, more so than the food products. I mean, how is Russias agricultural output these days? I presume it has improved since the days of the USSR?

[Dread Knot]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Blocking airspace could certainly be tricky, more so than the food products. I mean, how is Russias agricultural output these days? I presume it has improved since the days of the USSR?

And has it improved enough to compensate for the loss of the Baltics, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine?

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Dread Knot

And has it improved enough to compensate for the loss of the Baltics, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine?

That's what I'm pondering, I mean back in the day the Ukraine was supposedly the bread-basket of the Soviet Union, and even then grain shipments were still required from the US IIRC. Of course, this was under collectivization, so one would hope that things have improved since then but have they improved enough?

It does seem a rather odd thing to block, airspace yes, oil and gas exports, yes (although unless Putin shifted it quick to the PRC it would backfire on him), heck I'd even understand the likes of Syria suddenly gaining some nice new Russian made drones or something, but food...I must be missing something in the bigger picture, it's not like Putin to do something unless there's a reason for it that will either benefit Russia in the long term or damage Russias enemies more than Russia.

[Skybird]

In German:

http://www.anderweltonline.com/wisse...aysian-mh-017/

This is the analysis of a retired German Lufthansa flight captain who reports his conclusions on the so far publicly available photos of the wreckage pieces. Or better the once available pics that meanwhile were removed or disappeared mysteriously.

He points out that planes at the cockpit are build by thicker aluminium plates to harden them against the possibility of birdstrike, than at other parts of the plane.

He then points out that on those pics that show the skin around the cockpit, round both entry and exit holes are to be seen on parts of both cockpit sides. This m,eans: the cockpit has been fired on from two sides.

Such holes are not to be seen on pics from other parts of the aircraft.

This leads to the assumption that the cockpit was heavily fired on by armour breaking ammunition, judging by the size of the holes possibly in the 30mm range.

He then points out that there are reports from Russian radar surveillance that an Ukrainian SU-25 was in the very close vicinity of the airplane. Aloso, aSpansih radar controller gave a report on two Ukrainian jets quickly approaching the flight. He shows that the usual operation altitude of the SU-27 is around 7000m (which is being given as an argument that the SU25 could not have reached the Malaysian airliner flying ,much higher), but the maximum possible flight altitude for the SU-25 in easier configuration 14600 meters.

Also: the SU-25 is armed with a double cannon calibre 30mm, with 250 rounds. The plane is a tank eater and CAS specialist, something like the American A-10.

He finally hints at the fact that visually the MH17 airplane and the Russian presidential machine have quite similiar looking painting schemes, sharing some same colours as well - in other words, to the unknowing eye the planes could be mistaken for each other. Putin, at the time of the shot-down, was in midair, 200-300 km away - seen with the eyes of pilots, especially pilots of military aircraft, that is no big difference at all.

Add to this all the general hostile situation, the provoking visit of Putin on the Crimean, and the general hate of the Kiew government (Remember Timoshenko once wishing she could shoot Putin in the head?) for Putin.

The author also points out that the Americans have said that there possibly happened a target misidentification. They never said who mistook what for what, however.

This all together allows to formulate a theory on this possible scenario: the Ukrainian government decided to shoot down the plane of Putin in order to kill him. They used at least one SU-25 to be able afterwards to try to argue that the SU-25 could not have reached the airliner. Possibly, there was also an attack by a second flight from the other side, possibly simultaneously. The pilots found the airliner instead of Putins plane, got close to get a visual ID, and mistook the Malaysian plane for the Russian presidential plane. He then opened fire with his cannon at the cockpit to bring down the plane without treacherous missile parts telling the story, the flight deck crew was instantly killed and the plane was destroyed by explosive decompression. The ammunition of the SU-25 is armour-.breaking and explosive as well, leading to a huge amount of explosions in the cockpit area. This would explain the dramatic level of destruction at the cockpit that could be concluded on by pics of wreckage parts from the cockpit. The explosive decompression of the entire airframe at high speed and high altitude would explain why the wreckage is scattered over such a huge area.

Russian media for some time reported that there was an attack being carried out against Putin. I think these reports have been silenced fast, or not?! Which is logical, if Putin does not want to be forced under the eyes of his people to jump into an invasive war against the Ukraine. If Russia would admit their president was tried by another country to be assassinated, they would not have much other choice then to go to open war.

If it happened like this, we most certainly will never be told.

The German author mentiones that the Spanish radar controller who saw two Ukrainian aircraft hurrying towards MH17 and gave a report on that, has completely disappeared and could not be found, reached or talked to. He also finds it suspicious, that Google'S picture pool of images showing wreckage of the plane, seems to have seen a massive clean-up - many of the pics he used for his analysis are no longer available on the internet.

I withhold an own opinion on all this, since the author is an unknown variable to me, only that he indeed was flying airliners for Lufthansa is certain for me. I searched for him in a different context, when checking a book on the financial crisis he wrote (after retirement he turned for economic history). I found some irritating remarks by him that were somewhat glossing over Islam and painting it as the peacefull, tolerable, unable-to-do-harm relgion that we all know it never was or is. This irritation led me to do some more research on the man, and I finally found this text by him on MA17 that I have linked.

P.S. Edit: I said the airframe was not showing shots, just the cockpit was heavily peppered, but tzher eis one exscpetion, one of the wings shows what the author rates as a grazing shot.

I wonder why everybody is still talking about a missile hit from the ground when seeing those obvious bullet holes. Missiles do not split in midair into several projectiles that then home for the target like flying shrapnels and catch it in a pince-manouver from two opposing directions.

I earlier siad the most likely scneario was a separatist misidnetioficaqiton opf taregts and then shhoting the plane down with a SAM. I change my view due to the photos with the entry and exost holes that I see hard to be explained by wreckage pieces. The most likely scneario seems to be the theory above: an Ukrainian target misidentification during the attempt to kill Putin, and then shooting down the plane with cannons from two directions with at least two attacking aircraft. - Blame the Ukrainians, I say. They played foul over the sniper incidents on the Maidan as well.

Like over Georgia, Russia gets the blame here as well. And like over Georgia, unjustified.

Oh, and just a formality. If the scenario described is true, I could not criticise Russia if it decides to engage in full invasion against the Ukraine. Every state able to react militarily would react with war if another state tries assassinating its presidents.

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

Originally Posted by GalaKev

That was my thoughts as well about food. All it will do is increase prices within Russia, how is that helping their residents.

It may hit a few companies, but for the west, it may actually lower prices, as more is available.

It may lower prices but I don't think there is much reason for celebration - atleast in Finland. Finnish companies' food products exports to Russia total about €400 million per year - dairy products, meat, vegetables... Valio Oy (dairy products) announced plans to cut employees from three plants and one logistics center. It will be interesting to hear which companies are next and how many will lose their jobs as result of this.

In grand EU wide scale consequences may not be large but they are distributed evenly.

[Skybird]

In an addendum, the author hints at another mysterious fact.

In publications basing on Janes, the maximum altitude of the SU-25 often was listed with around 10670 m - in 1984. Since then, the plane and its engines were repeatedly improved. Wikipedia, the German as well as the English site, listed the altitude at "around 10000 meters" until early July 2014.

Then over night, early July 2014, that entry was changed and now shows "7000m" only.

[TarJak]

Speculation. All we KNOW is that the plane was shot down by something. We don't know what yet. Regardless of the findings of any investigations there will always brew speculation about cover ups and conspiracies. I don't see how that helps either the victims our their families.

[Skybird]

The man has some very good points, and the technical specifications, the photographies (even if now being cleaned by secret services most likely), and the witness reports by that Spanish flight controller cannot be denied or assumed to never have existed. The author forms it all into a very reasonable theory, not into some fantasy-stretching conspiracy story about aliens from Mars. That all together is a bit more than just "speculation". Its a well thought-out and well-founded theory basing on some undeniable facts, and so deserves more careful examination and research than just wiping the unwanted possibility off the table by insisting: "Speculation. Period."

But I am aware of course that this scenario would not be met with cheers and welcomes by many people in the West. It would paint the wrong guys as the bad guys here. It should not be Kiew that is responsible, because the good guys in Kiew should be brought into EU and NATO if Washington has its will, and so they must be the guys in white and shiny armour. The blame must be put on the separatists and on Russia. That is a political demand ordered by Brussel and Washington, and whether reality corresponds with it or not does not interest our glorious leaders.

[TarJak]

I've not a care which side did the deed. I'm interested in the facts only and not idle speculation or conspiracy theories.

[Dread Knot]

Originally Posted by TarJak

I've not a care which side did the deed. I'm interested in the facts only and not idle speculation or conspiracy theories.

Agreed. Especially the crude attempts on some people's part to make this tragedy prove some other crack pot conspiracy theory.