> "The journalist was reportedly found by his wife bleeding at the entrance to his block of flats, shot several times in the back, and died in an ambulance.
> He apparently did not tell his wife that the murder had been staged. "Special apologies to my wife," he said at the press conference."
That can shatter the pillar of trust that a relationship is based on. I've experienced it before: one meaningful lie and no matter how many years of truth follow, the relationship dynamic is altered forever. There's always a cloud of doubt.
I'm betting in your case the meaningful lie didn't involve a bid to literally save the liar's life from an assassination plot by an extremely powerful organization.
Yeah, I have no opinion on the right or wrong way to deal with assassination plots. I'm not exactly an expert.
I think context is probably very important, but I don't think context alone can diminish the effect this kind of lie can have. You just kind of leave someone in ontological shock about the foundation of one of their most important relationships.
I'm not sure I could do something like that without telling my wife. Surely they could have given her some warning and kept her out of the public eye until the person ordering the assassin had been caught in the sting.
> Babchenko said that his wife Olechka and his children were aware of the plan, but he publicly apologised to her at the press conference. "Olechka, I am terribly sorry," he said, "but there were no other options".
> Mr Hrytsak alleged that Russian security services had recruited a Ukrainian citizen to find hitmen within the country. He said the citizen approached several acquaintances, including war veterans, offering $30,000 for the contract killing, one of whom revealed the plot to the security services.
Blanks, blood squib, cooperative ambulance crew, report back with "mission successful" and see what sort of activity happens at the Russian embassy.
Say, their signals people picked up a shortwave destined to an agent, but they had no idea where to look for him.
Or if the disposable and deniable hitman was employed, and the agent himself was out of their reach for whatever reason. They may have wanted to intercept him, and have their own man to reach Russian agent once the execution order was "fulfilled"
"...officials said Babchenko staged his death in coordination with Ukrainian police as part of an investigation into threats made against his life. The plan had been in place for more than a month...They have made one arrest in connection with the operation." [0]
It's not clear why they faked his death, but apparently it led to something happening.
#Babchenko said that he had found out about an assassination that was being planned against him and joined up with Ukrainian security services to catch the killer, and add that according to their info, Russia ordered the murder
#Babchenko: "Special apologies to my wife. Olechka, I am sorry, but there were no options here. The operation took two months to prepare. I was told a month ago. As a result of the operation, one person has been captured, he is being held."
Yes, this was a really bad PR call. They literally created "fake news" about Russia, when you don't need to create anything fake to make the Kremlin look bad. This is really bone-headed.
Because the invasion of Ukraine is pretty under-reported. This recent story may cause news agencies to pass on reporting on the issue in the future, as now there is a clear example of the authorities passing false narratives. This diminishes what should be the goal, spreading the news of Russia invading Eastern Europe and killing 10,000+ Eastern Europeans.
> the only thing fake was him actually dying
Yes, but the general headline of the previous stories was "Reporter murdered"
Take the example of having posted this story in a news forum, like Reddit, and getting lots of upvotes. A few days later it turns out the crux of the story "Reporter murdered" is actually not true. How likely are you going to post stories involving this narrative in the future? Don't you have a bitter taste in your mouth from the whole thing? I would imagine that reporters who's names are on the original "Reporter murdered" stories may also have a bitter taste in their mouth.
Since it is too late to edit my original comment, I want to retract my tone and ham-handedness. Having escaped Russian rule as a child, this all gets me worked up. Sorry HN.
Just wanted to follow up on this. Looks like I was not the only one to have these thoughts.
>That drew criticism from media and commentators abroad who questioned whether the ruse and the false outpouring of grief and finger-pointing at Russia it provoked had undermined credibility in Kiev and handing the Kremlin a propaganda gift.
>One senior EU country diplomat who attended Friday’s meeting said Lutsenko had given a convincing explanation to justify the means Ukraine had employed.
>“I’m happy, others are happier than before. I’d say it was the right thing to,” the diplomat told Reuters, adding that Lutsenko did “acknowledge that the media reaction came as a surprise and that side should have been handled better.”
>Separately two television presenters based in Ukraine, one Russian and one Ukrainian, disclosed publicly that the Ukrainian authorities had shown them evidence of being on Russia’s hit list and were now living under state protection.
>A senior European Union official involved in Ukraine said the staged murder could undermine trust in Kiev if the government did not come forward quickly with evidence of what they claimed and the plot’s links to Russia.
The only thing I was thinking was that they wanted to test Russia's reaction to it for a day. I agree with you it probably wasn't necessary, but reads like a great spy novel.
My understanding of this paragraph [1] was that it was the Russia's saying he staged his death, not the Ukrainians or the journalist himself. I could be wrong though.
1- The Russian foreign ministry said in a statement it was happy that Mr Babchenko was alive. Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the staged murder was done for "propagandistic effect", Russia's Interfax news agency reported.
The content of the article has changed dramatically since it was first posted here and when I commented. It's now clear the murder was staged. At the time that wasn't clear.
As far as I understood (I speak both Ukrainian and Russian languages) it was necessary to gather solid evidence against the organizer of the crime, who paid for the assassination of the journalist.
The would-be assassin was an undercover Ukrainian agent, and he’ll be one of the key witnesses in the criminal case that will follow.
Locking the organizer up will save more than one man’s life, both directly (other people who’s killing he might have organized in the future) and indirectly (because of the media coverage of this case, the price tag might raise a lot).
The survived journalist has told to the press the organizer has gave the “assassin” the journalist’s photo identical to the photo in his Russian passport.
I’m not a lawyer but that looks like an indirect evidence pointing towards Russian government.
You see stories like this all the time from the US. A spouse hires a hitman to kill their partner but the hitman is an undercover police officer. The police stage the death and show the result to the spouse who confirms their wishes were carried out. Then surprise! Their partner is alive.
I cant imagine what it's like to have an entire nation after you. I'd say the plot uncovered was put into play maybe Russia puts out a general call to any hitman to kill a target for them so Russia may not know who it was that did it.
But now I think we may be back to square one his wife may actually want to kill him now.
While in jail for hiring a hitman, she attempted to put out a hit on the fake hitman. After that failed, she tried to take out a witness and an attorney!
One of the things about mainstream journalism I've noticed in the last few years is that for the most part is they're generally not completely wrong - at least about something on this scale. I'm referring to generally free and open western news organizations. And I know plenty of news organizations can get stories muted by governments in some cases for national security reasons, but often not as binary as this.
They will report what they're told by the official source, as they did in this case. This isn't on the mainstream media. I'm not entirely convinced you read the article!
edit: there's some confusion over my statement "this isn't on the mainstream media". I mean that this isn't the mainstream media's fault.
With "on" I believe they are using the common short hand for ascribing blame (as in "It's not on you, it's on me") not claiming that mainstream articles didn't report the death.
The intent of the phrase may have been that the "blame" for this being misreported isn't "on" the mainstream media, not that the story itself wasn't on the mainstream media.
Mainstream, man! It's not in the mainstream media, maaan! They're keeping you stupid! Wake up sheeple, because...oh, it's on the BBC. Literally the state news service of the UK. Still, can't trust them man, they're lying to you.
> They will report what they're told by the official source
Well, if they are pushing government propaganda, as media often does (it has to due to manufactured consent, governments won't allow it any other way). Otherwise they should never report anything officials claim without a lot of criticism and skepticism.
If the official source has a habit of lying about similar issues to the media then I'd agree. Generally when the police say that somebody has been murdered then they've been murdered. Treating such a claim by the police skeptically would be generally ridiculous unless they have a reason to do so.
Official sources, especially law enforcement, have a habit of loaded claims with regards to everything. There is always an agenda, some propaganda, someone "bad", something "bad" happening to scare people and so on, with pretty much no verifiable information. But even if for some miracle it is verifiable, why would media ever report on any of that, when there are a lot more deaths from other causes, all barely reported and a lot more other issues. Obviously government propaganda somehow has priority in mainstream media over any actual issues societies face.
But if this was a sting, it's not a good move by Ukraine/Kiev. It's just going to help future disinformation by the Putin regime. I wonder what their intended goal was?
>John Schindler @20committee
Exactly.
Incredibly stupid move by Kyiv.
Lots of ways to deter Kremlin wetwork without playing Western media for idiots.
>Steven Sullivan @compliancedivis
Right. The next time the Kremlin orders someone's ticket punched they're going to claim they're not really dead.
This is a solid point. This gives the Kremlin a lot of future propaganda fodder. It'll only be worth it if the sting uncovers smoking gun evidence that the orders came from the Kremlin.
Edit: To be clear, I am sympathetic to the Ukraine’s position. They are definitely the good guys in the broader saga, and have suffered greatly due to Russian wrongdoing, but there is good reason to be more skeptical of their explanation here. I’m taken aback at how uncritically people are treating it. This was a staged assassination publicly blamed on another country. That should turn your bullshit-detector to maximum sensitivity. Original post:
So they blamed Russia for a staged murder, creating a very serious and very public international incident, as part of an investigation? How is no one raising the possibility that this was done to frame Russia, and that now they have changed their mind for whatever reason (perhaps fear of the ruse being discovered). Surely that’s worth considering.
It’s exactly what we would be speculating if it was done by a regime considered hostile to the West, instead of one considered friendly.
I have no reason to believe any particular theory of what actually happened and why, but surely, the Ukrainian government’s explanation should not just be parroted uncritically by the press and commentators.
> creating a very serious and very public international incident
Russia invaded and annexed Crimea, sent mercenaries to Donbass and Syria, bombed hospitals in Syria, shot down MH-17, killed dozen of journalists domestically... but you've worried that one murder accusation is a 'very serious' incident?
I’m not expressing concern or lack of concern about anything but the uncritical acceptance of the explanation for what’s happened here. All of those things you list, they are very serious. And so is accusing another sovereign of carrying out a murder. Truth doesn’t have a side, and two falsehoods don’t make a truth.
For the record, I am concerned about those actions by Russia. I think it’s downright awful what they’ve done to the Ukraine.
Well, for the record, you sound more like a russian shill account than a skeptic. Given your comment history I doubt you actually are.
While I certainly think there are more details we don't know and I'll take any explanation with a grain of salt, parroting the Russian line that this is a "Ukranian PR ruse" doesn't make you a skeptic.
Did you even read my comment? Raising it as an obvious possibility worth considering, followed by saying that I have no reason to believe anything in particular about this, is not “parroting” anything.
Just how carefully do I have to phrase my statements to not “sound like a Russian shill”? Do I need to separate each substantive sentence with a condmenation of Putin, to prove that I am not guilty of wrongthink?
>How is no one raising the possibility that this was done to frame Russia, and that now they have changed their mind for whatever reason (perhaps fear of the ruse being discovered). Surely that’s worth considering.
You start off with a tone of disbelief that this theory that "should be obvious as a possibility" is being overlooked when all the articles I've read quote Russian sources espousing exactly that theory.
Then you don't actually provide any reasoning or evidence as to why the official story doesn't hold up, nor do you provide any evidence to support your theory.
Your theory itself doesn't make sense to me. Faking someone's death as a PR stunt that will draw media attention and scrutiny is risky. I don't see how the massive risk of credibility loss for Ukraine is worth the relatively small PR hit to Russia. The cost / benefit analysis just doesn't seem worth it.
A far more realistic theory was that the attempted hit was real, has some plausible connection to Russia, but the staging of the reporter's death was done with an eye strongly on the extra media attention and PR implications that it would bring to the case rather than solely for investigative purposes.
Disclaimer: I'm not going to lie about my identity. I'm Russian. Most people in my social circle believe "Western" MH-17 propaganda. Some believe Russian MH-17 propaganda. Both groups also believe even more dangerous lies, and that makes me genuinely interested how the propaganda works on the micro-level (convincing individual people).
Of course there's dozens of articles there. What makes you think this source is credible?
If a passenger aircraft was supposedly shot down with a surface-to-air missile over, for example, Argentina, would you expect an international investigation team to say they checked with Argentinian air defence bases and made sure their launchers don't have traces of a recent launch? Has JIT said anything of this sort?
Imagine a similar incident in, say, Syria, investigated by an international team lead by Russians with some involvement of Belarus and Iran. Let's say they publish a report blaming US-supported rebels. Would you lend the same credence to this hypothetical report?
I just read the fresh news about Malaysian minister not convinced with the evidence [1] and have to admit you can be right here. We'll see what happens next, but it doesn't seem entirely impossible that this bunch of officials is indeed just one nation too diverse to lie in concert.
First of all, thanks for a substantive reply. I wasn't sure I would get any. And yes, the case is widely considered rather clear cut — this is exactly why I'm horrified and trying to understand it better.
- bragged about it in social media
This I understand completely. Was entirely convinced by this myself and really shocked much later to recognize how easily that bragging post could be staged.
- talked about it on enencrypted radio
This is interesting. These were normal cell phone calls. Ukrainian three-letter agency routinely intercepted and published these. I think, if we mistrust the timestamps, only one of the published calls is both clearly linked to this airplane and implying that separatists thought it was them shooting [1]. This one might be interesting to listen to even if you don't understand any Russian, and it's only half a minute long. Do you think this is a real intercepted phone call, not pasted from several different ones?
- very carefully moved some gear away in one of the following nights
Probably. But what do we really know about that? The only published piece of evidence about the route is this video [2]. How do you know when it was filmed and whether it has been manipulated?
Ok, I'm not convinced at all but you are arguing respectfully. Here are some follow-ups:
> bragged about it in social media
>> This I understand completely. Was entirely convinced by this myself and really shocked much later to recognize how easily that bragging post could be staged.
However simple it is to stage a social media post I'd still guess it is a 100 times easier to send it from the real account.
And one extra observation: detailed analysis of the missile fragment has been done and I think they also points to a version of the missile that the Ukrainian army did nit have access to.
Now even if we had dismissed the moving of equipment as well as the audio we would still have a social media post that could have been staged but more likely not as well as fragments of a rocket only available to the russian side.
The alternative:
- staged social media
- lying about audio evidence
- faking video
- fooling and/or getting Dutch investigators to lie
- all without a single leak.
I know personally that if I was involved in a misinformation operation like that I would have looked for ways to collect evidence and then as soon as possible send it to a trustworthy reporter or something.
I mean: even Russian social media trolling operators grow tired of lying, quit and come forward.
I guess I'm not alone in that.
To raise an analogy:
It is possible that the moon landing has been staged. But the chance of that happening without anyone of those involved leaking over all those years? That is a very close to 0% chance.
So, perceived number and diversity of the people involved in the hypothetical misinformation operation seems to be key.
1) The part about fake evidence seems to be firmly within reach of Ukrainian secret service: after all, the original article is about them successfully staging a high-profile crime. I'd hypothesize such organizations have on average less than one Snowden per generation.
2) Then, there is a rather opaque entity: JIT. On the other hand, it is large and international. How do we assess the probability of leak here?
3) Does misinformation need to involve people without strong NDAs? Not sure. Also, here's the most strange part of this story. Both suggested launch sites are in rather populated areas, so there were a lot of witnesses, both civilian and military (both sides). So, you'd expect some tweets and pictures, like "look wtf these bastards launched" from the other side of conflict? I tried searching. Found none.
> The part about fake evidence seems to be firmly within reach of Ukrainian secret service: after all, the original article is about them successfully staging a high-profile crime.
No doubt about that.
And the moon landings could be special effects.
> I'd hypothesize such organizations have on average less than one Snowden per generation.
Remember: firing the rocket must have been done by the army, not by some NSA like agency. That increases the risk of leaks.
> Then, there is a rather opaque entity: JIT. On the other hand, it is large and international. How do we assess the probability of leak here?
You write like there is a cover up here, but what do those guys have to win by blaming one part instead of the other?
Western Europeans does not generally go around hating Russians trying to find something to blame them for.
> Also, here's the most strange part of this story. Both suggested launch sites are in rather populated areas, so there were a lot of witnesses, both civilian and military (both sides). So, you'd expect some tweets and pictures, like "look wtf these bastards launched" from the other side of conflict? I tried searching. Found none.
This, if true, is also interesting.
Also: here is some reading material that goes into the investigation:
> Remember: firing the rocket must have been done by the army, not by some NSA like agency. That increases the risk of leaks.
Sure. But by how much? Ukrainians were actively moving their BUK launchers around at the time, so the movement itself wasn't going to raise suspicions. The firing itself is going to involve a dozen of officers. Other soldiers will see the rocket and this will leak? Don't know. The opposing soldiers have also definitely seen the rocket, and you would suppose this is not their secret, so you'd expect them to just tell the journalists? Nothing.
> You write like there is a cover up here, but what do those guys have to win by blaming one part instead of the other?
Or to lose. US government has consistently expressed a strong opinion on this case. How do we know what influence do they have on Dutch investigators?
> Western Europeans does not generally go around hating Russians trying to find something to blame them for.
Sure, false flag operations are not generally guided by emotions.
You're basically restating Russia's position as mentioned in the article:
> The Russian foreign ministry said in a statement that the staged murder was done for "propagandistic effect"
This doesn't make sense, as Russia is already well-known for killing journalists and no one is doing anything about it. What would be the point of adding a fake body to the pile? What do you think they planned to do with the still living journalist? This idea just doesn't make sense.
Mods: I would advise locking this thread, there is questionable activity here that would seem to indicate a coordinated effort to influence the discussion and I don't see it veering back into a positive place.
Edit: I shouldn't have commented as I didn't add to the conversation. From the guidelines:
Please don't impute astroturfing or shillage. That degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about it, email us and we'll look at the data.
Sorry to judge the guy by the looks, but he looks more like a Ukrainian mobster than a journo! Begin an Eastern European; there's almost no such thing as honest journalism in our parts of the world! Many corrupt people are presenting themselves as Kremlin critics when the reality is that they get involved with the Mafia and get punished by it!
A Romanian spy was reluctant to conduct an assassination of two dissidents living in France. So he contacted the french secret services (DST). And fake attempts/executions were staged.
The one that was "killed" officially stayed low for ~3 months, which enabled the (ex-)spy to fetch his brother in Bucharest and defect to the West.
96 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 179 ms ] thread> He apparently did not tell his wife that the murder had been staged. "Special apologies to my wife," he said at the press conference."
He'll be in the doghouse for a while after this.
I think context is probably very important, but I don't think context alone can diminish the effect this kind of lie can have. You just kind of leave someone in ontological shock about the foundation of one of their most important relationships.
> Babchenko said that his wife Olechka and his children were aware of the plan, but he publicly apologised to her at the press conference. "Olechka, I am terribly sorry," he said, "but there were no other options".
Did they arrest someone who was hired to kill him? What was the point of this?
Was he not actually shot? Was he even shot at? Him being found by his wife dead and bloody, did this happen?
I don't understand this at all.
Then it wasn't really going to fool Russia, they hadn't attacked him. Was it an attempt to influence Western countries?
That's not supported by what we know.
It's not uncommon for people to get caught hiring hitmen that turn out to be undercover police. That may be what happened here.
edit: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44307611 states:
> Mr Hrytsak alleged that Russian security services had recruited a Ukrainian citizen to find hitmen within the country. He said the citizen approached several acquaintances, including war veterans, offering $30,000 for the contract killing, one of whom revealed the plot to the security services.
Blanks, blood squib, cooperative ambulance crew, report back with "mission successful" and see what sort of activity happens at the Russian embassy.
Or if the disposable and deniable hitman was employed, and the agent himself was out of their reach for whatever reason. They may have wanted to intercept him, and have their own man to reach Russian agent once the execution order was "fulfilled"
They have arrested someone who paid to kill the journalist.
The “assassin” was an undercover Ukrainian agent, and he’s gonna be one of the key witnesses in the criminal case that will follow.
It's not clear why they faked his death, but apparently it led to something happening.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/30/russian-journa...
https://twitter.com/polina__ivanova/status/10018358919487078...
#Babchenko: "Special apologies to my wife. Olechka, I am sorry, but there were no options here. The operation took two months to prepare. I was told a month ago. As a result of the operation, one person has been captured, he is being held."
https://twitter.com/polina__ivanova/status/10018329989946613...
Police said that they had made one arrest in connection with the alleged assassination plot.
Edit: removed unnecessary language sympathetic to one side or another
Because the invasion of Ukraine is pretty under-reported. This recent story may cause news agencies to pass on reporting on the issue in the future, as now there is a clear example of the authorities passing false narratives. This diminishes what should be the goal, spreading the news of Russia invading Eastern Europe and killing 10,000+ Eastern Europeans.
> the only thing fake was him actually dying
Yes, but the general headline of the previous stories was "Reporter murdered"
Take the example of having posted this story in a news forum, like Reddit, and getting lots of upvotes. A few days later it turns out the crux of the story "Reporter murdered" is actually not true. How likely are you going to post stories involving this narrative in the future? Don't you have a bitter taste in your mouth from the whole thing? I would imagine that reporters who's names are on the original "Reporter murdered" stories may also have a bitter taste in their mouth.
>That drew criticism from media and commentators abroad who questioned whether the ruse and the false outpouring of grief and finger-pointing at Russia it provoked had undermined credibility in Kiev and handing the Kremlin a propaganda gift.
>One senior EU country diplomat who attended Friday’s meeting said Lutsenko had given a convincing explanation to justify the means Ukraine had employed.
>“I’m happy, others are happier than before. I’d say it was the right thing to,” the diplomat told Reuters, adding that Lutsenko did “acknowledge that the media reaction came as a surprise and that side should have been handled better.”
>Separately two television presenters based in Ukraine, one Russian and one Ukrainian, disclosed publicly that the Ukrainian authorities had shown them evidence of being on Russia’s hit list and were now living under state protection.
>A senior European Union official involved in Ukraine said the staged murder could undermine trust in Kiev if the government did not come forward quickly with evidence of what they claimed and the plot’s links to Russia.
source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-russia-journalist...
1- The Russian foreign ministry said in a statement it was happy that Mr Babchenko was alive. Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the staged murder was done for "propagandistic effect", Russia's Interfax news agency reported.
Russia seems to be saying that they staged it as propaganda and there was no real attempt on his life.
The would-be assassin was an undercover Ukrainian agent, and he’ll be one of the key witnesses in the criminal case that will follow.
Locking the organizer up will save more than one man’s life, both directly (other people who’s killing he might have organized in the future) and indirectly (because of the media coverage of this case, the price tag might raise a lot).
I’m not a lawyer but that looks like an indirect evidence pointing towards Russian government.
I cant imagine what it's like to have an entire nation after you. I'd say the plot uncovered was put into play maybe Russia puts out a general call to any hitman to kill a target for them so Russia may not know who it was that did it.
But now I think we may be back to square one his wife may actually want to kill him now.
This one's my favorite, I think: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/03/11/utah-woman-found-guilty...
While in jail for hiring a hitman, she attempted to put out a hit on the fake hitman. After that failed, she tried to take out a witness and an attorney!
The fact that this happened is pretty amazing.
edit: there's some confusion over my statement "this isn't on the mainstream media". I mean that this isn't the mainstream media's fault.
NY Times yesterday: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/world/europe/russian-jour... NY Times today: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/world/europe/arkady-babch...
This is blatantly false. It was reported on the BBC and the New York Times, two of the world's biggest mainstream newspapers
Well, if they are pushing government propaganda, as media often does (it has to due to manufactured consent, governments won't allow it any other way). Otherwise they should never report anything officials claim without a lot of criticism and skepticism.
That's a pretty low threshold.
But if this was a sting, it's not a good move by Ukraine/Kiev. It's just going to help future disinformation by the Putin regime. I wonder what their intended goal was?
>John Schindler @20committee
Exactly.
Incredibly stupid move by Kyiv.
Lots of ways to deter Kremlin wetwork without playing Western media for idiots.
>Steven Sullivan @compliancedivis
Right. The next time the Kremlin orders someone's ticket punched they're going to claim they're not really dead.
https://twitter.com/20committee/status/1001834917054042112 (John Schindler: ex-NSA, deep knowledge of Western intel, has had some scandals but is a reliable source and has editorial indep at his current pub.)
Right, like Kremlin never made claims like this before. i.e., https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/russian...
So they blamed Russia for a staged murder, creating a very serious and very public international incident, as part of an investigation? How is no one raising the possibility that this was done to frame Russia, and that now they have changed their mind for whatever reason (perhaps fear of the ruse being discovered). Surely that’s worth considering.
It’s exactly what we would be speculating if it was done by a regime considered hostile to the West, instead of one considered friendly.
I have no reason to believe any particular theory of what actually happened and why, but surely, the Ukrainian government’s explanation should not just be parroted uncritically by the press and commentators.
Russia invaded and annexed Crimea, sent mercenaries to Donbass and Syria, bombed hospitals in Syria, shot down MH-17, killed dozen of journalists domestically... but you've worried that one murder accusation is a 'very serious' incident?
For the record, I am concerned about those actions by Russia. I think it’s downright awful what they’ve done to the Ukraine.
While I certainly think there are more details we don't know and I'll take any explanation with a grain of salt, parroting the Russian line that this is a "Ukranian PR ruse" doesn't make you a skeptic.
Just how carefully do I have to phrase my statements to not “sound like a Russian shill”? Do I need to separate each substantive sentence with a condmenation of Putin, to prove that I am not guilty of wrongthink?
>How is no one raising the possibility that this was done to frame Russia, and that now they have changed their mind for whatever reason (perhaps fear of the ruse being discovered). Surely that’s worth considering.
You start off with a tone of disbelief that this theory that "should be obvious as a possibility" is being overlooked when all the articles I've read quote Russian sources espousing exactly that theory.
Then you don't actually provide any reasoning or evidence as to why the official story doesn't hold up, nor do you provide any evidence to support your theory.
Your theory itself doesn't make sense to me. Faking someone's death as a PR stunt that will draw media attention and scrutiny is risky. I don't see how the massive risk of credibility loss for Ukraine is worth the relatively small PR hit to Russia. The cost / benefit analysis just doesn't seem worth it.
A far more realistic theory was that the attempted hit was real, has some plausible connection to Russia, but the staging of the reporter's death was done with an eye strongly on the extra media attention and PR implications that it would bring to the case rather than solely for investigative purposes.
Are you sure? If so, what convinced you?
Disclaimer: I'm not going to lie about my identity. I'm Russian. Most people in my social circle believe "Western" MH-17 propaganda. Some believe Russian MH-17 propaganda. Both groups also believe even more dangerous lies, and that makes me genuinely interested how the propaganda works on the micro-level (convincing individual people).
So, mr skeptic, here's dozens of articles about investigation: https://www.om.nl/onderwerpen/mh17-crash/
They even had a separate presentation in Russian at the bottom of the page.
If a passenger aircraft was supposedly shot down with a surface-to-air missile over, for example, Argentina, would you expect an international investigation team to say they checked with Argentinian air defence bases and made sure their launchers don't have traces of a recent launch? Has JIT said anything of this sort?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17191001
This is an international investigation team. I think it's credible enough.
[1] https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/no-conclusive-evid...
- bragged about it in social media
- talked about it on unencrypted radio
- very carefully moved some gear away in one of the following nights
- bragged about it in social media
This I understand completely. Was entirely convinced by this myself and really shocked much later to recognize how easily that bragging post could be staged.
- talked about it on enencrypted radio
This is interesting. These were normal cell phone calls. Ukrainian three-letter agency routinely intercepted and published these. I think, if we mistrust the timestamps, only one of the published calls is both clearly linked to this airplane and implying that separatists thought it was them shooting [1]. This one might be interesting to listen to even if you don't understand any Russian, and it's only half a minute long. Do you think this is a real intercepted phone call, not pasted from several different ones?
- very carefully moved some gear away in one of the following nights
Probably. But what do we really know about that? The only published piece of evidence about the route is this video [2]. How do you know when it was filmed and whether it has been manipulated?
[1] https://youtu.be/V5E8kDo2n6g?t=1m49s
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4HJmev5xg0
> bragged about it in social media
>> This I understand completely. Was entirely convinced by this myself and really shocked much later to recognize how easily that bragging post could be staged.
However simple it is to stage a social media post I'd still guess it is a 100 times easier to send it from the real account.
And one extra observation: detailed analysis of the missile fragment has been done and I think they also points to a version of the missile that the Ukrainian army did nit have access to.
Now even if we had dismissed the moving of equipment as well as the audio we would still have a social media post that could have been staged but more likely not as well as fragments of a rocket only available to the russian side.
The alternative:
- staged social media
- lying about audio evidence
- faking video
- fooling and/or getting Dutch investigators to lie
- all without a single leak.
I know personally that if I was involved in a misinformation operation like that I would have looked for ways to collect evidence and then as soon as possible send it to a trustworthy reporter or something.
I mean: even Russian social media trolling operators grow tired of lying, quit and come forward.
I guess I'm not alone in that.
To raise an analogy:
It is possible that the moon landing has been staged. But the chance of that happening without anyone of those involved leaking over all those years? That is a very close to 0% chance.
1) The part about fake evidence seems to be firmly within reach of Ukrainian secret service: after all, the original article is about them successfully staging a high-profile crime. I'd hypothesize such organizations have on average less than one Snowden per generation.
2) Then, there is a rather opaque entity: JIT. On the other hand, it is large and international. How do we assess the probability of leak here?
3) Does misinformation need to involve people without strong NDAs? Not sure. Also, here's the most strange part of this story. Both suggested launch sites are in rather populated areas, so there were a lot of witnesses, both civilian and military (both sides). So, you'd expect some tweets and pictures, like "look wtf these bastards launched" from the other side of conflict? I tried searching. Found none.
> The part about fake evidence seems to be firmly within reach of Ukrainian secret service: after all, the original article is about them successfully staging a high-profile crime.
No doubt about that.
And the moon landings could be special effects.
> I'd hypothesize such organizations have on average less than one Snowden per generation.
Remember: firing the rocket must have been done by the army, not by some NSA like agency. That increases the risk of leaks.
> Then, there is a rather opaque entity: JIT. On the other hand, it is large and international. How do we assess the probability of leak here?
You write like there is a cover up here, but what do those guys have to win by blaming one part instead of the other?
Western Europeans does not generally go around hating Russians trying to find something to blame them for.
> Also, here's the most strange part of this story. Both suggested launch sites are in rather populated areas, so there were a lot of witnesses, both civilian and military (both sides). So, you'd expect some tweets and pictures, like "look wtf these bastards launched" from the other side of conflict? I tried searching. Found none.
This, if true, is also interesting.
Also: here is some reading material that goes into the investigation:
https://www.om.nl/onderwerpen/mh17-crash/
https://www.om.nl/mh17-ezine-juni2016/4-forensic-research-en...
https://www.om.nl/mh17-ezine-juni2016/7-weapon-system-en.htm...
Sure. But by how much? Ukrainians were actively moving their BUK launchers around at the time, so the movement itself wasn't going to raise suspicions. The firing itself is going to involve a dozen of officers. Other soldiers will see the rocket and this will leak? Don't know. The opposing soldiers have also definitely seen the rocket, and you would suppose this is not their secret, so you'd expect them to just tell the journalists? Nothing.
> You write like there is a cover up here, but what do those guys have to win by blaming one part instead of the other?
Or to lose. US government has consistently expressed a strong opinion on this case. How do we know what influence do they have on Dutch investigators?
> Western Europeans does not generally go around hating Russians trying to find something to blame them for.
Sure, false flag operations are not generally guided by emotions.
> The Russian foreign ministry said in a statement that the staged murder was done for "propagandistic effect"
This doesn't make sense, as Russia is already well-known for killing journalists and no one is doing anything about it. What would be the point of adding a fake body to the pile? What do you think they planned to do with the still living journalist? This idea just doesn't make sense.
Edit: I shouldn't have commented as I didn't add to the conversation. From the guidelines:
Please don't impute astroturfing or shillage. That degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about it, email us and we'll look at the data.
I'll shut up now.
This has no substance whatsoever. I would expect more on HN.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matei_Pavel_Haiducu
A Romanian spy was reluctant to conduct an assassination of two dissidents living in France. So he contacted the french secret services (DST). And fake attempts/executions were staged.
The one that was "killed" officially stayed low for ~3 months, which enabled the (ex-)spy to fetch his brother in Bucharest and defect to the West.
(video in french: http://lesoubliesdelhistoire.fr/video/200964054)