British report links Russian army spy to MH17 crash

By Abdullah Asiran

THE HAGUE

British investigators on Friday claimed to have identified a Russian military staff who brought down Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014.

The report by the open source investigative search network Bellingcat identifies "Russian citizen Oleg Vladimirovich Ivannikov" -- who is known as Andrey Ivanovich, a high-ranking Russian military intelligence (GRU) officer -- as the key person of interest in the ongoing investigation of the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17.

According to the report, Ivannikov supervised the procurement and transport of weapons across the Russia-Ukraine border. He held these functions at the time of the downing of MH17 while he was still serving as GRU officer until at least as late as September 2017.

Ivannikov also coordinated and supervised the military activities of Russian militants, pro-Russian separatists and “private army” contingents from the Russian company Wagner group.

The released information was received from the intercepted telephone calls related to the downing of MH17.

Ivannikov was believed to have been appointed by a senior official, however, the report said the identity of the could not be revealed.

The report said Ivannikov was one of the two persons of interest whose identity was sought by the Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team.

The investigation team, comprising the authorities from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands, and Ukraine, presented Thursday its findings in a news conference in the Netherlands saying a Russian missile shot down Flight MH17.

JIT said the missile that downed the plane resembled another Russian-made Buk missile that crossed into Ukraine from the Russian city Kursk four weeks prior to the incident.

The team said a Russian 53rd anti-aircraft brigade was in possession of the missile.

The Kuala Lumpur-bound flight from Amsterdam was shot down above the troubled state of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine from a pro-Russian separatist-controlled territory.

Moscow denies participation in tragedy

In response to the JIT statement, the Russian Defense Ministry rejected the accusations.

"The Defense Ministry of Russia, both in the first hours after the tragedy and later, officially refuted the insinuations of the Ukrainian side about the alleged participation of Russian military personnel in the accident in the sky of Ukraine and provided the Dutch investigative group with the relevant evidence," the statement said.

Russia is concerned that the investigators "focused on the justification of its findings through the use of only images from social networks subjected to skillful processing by computer graphic editing," it said.