It’s been over three years since I blogged about the first stage of the Dutch Safety Board investigation’s completion, and a lot has happened since then. To recap the background, for new readers:
- In July of 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight 17 was shot down over disputed territory in Eastern Ukraine, which was then under the control of Russian-backed separatists. 298 people were killed, the vast majority of whom were Dutch citizens.
- Despite fairly clear evidence immediately linking those separatists to the event (including voice recording of the “Oh shit” moment), Russian media pushed back hard against what they considered hostile narratives, providing a flurry of (often contradictory) alternative stories.
- In the meantime, Dutch investigators were unable to gain immediate access to the crash site, which was cordoned off by separatists arguing that the area was unsafe. This led to outrage from the Netherlands, who accused the separatists of, among other things, looting the bodies they found.
In short, it represented an ugly moment for intra-European relations, and those wounds are likely reopening as the latest information and evidence is made public (at least: officially. Much of this was already known.)
One of the reasons all aspects of this investigation has taken so long because of the way the initial impact site was unavailable. The Joint International Team has finally wrapped up its own investigation, however, and among other things, they pointed to the Russian 53rd Brigade (out of Kursk, Russia), who provided the missile that shot down MH17 and then transferred the launcher back over the border to conceal the evidence.
In the meantime, independent journalists at Bellingcat (who identified the 53rd Brigade as the likely perpetrators years ago, but the Investigation rightly requires a higher threshold of evidence) have also completed their own open-sourced investigation, which they are planning to announce in a separate press conference tomorrow, delivered at the Hague.
All of this naturally puts the spotlight on Russia, and so far the responses have been both expected and disheartening. On the one hand, Putin has said Russia will not accept any of the investigation’s results because Russia was not allowed to participate. The Investigative Team countered that Russia refused to answer any questions (Putin had demanded “unrestricted participation” and refused to cooperate otherwise). Russia’s Foreign Ministry countered that they provided copious amounts of data and material, and the Russian Ministry of Defense has already accused the investigators of relying on social-media-manipulated images, etc.
In short, the two most immediate results of this investigation are entirely expected: that the separatists would be named and implicated with the support of Russian munitions, and that, absent any kind of retaliatory threat (meaning: political, economic, even social), Russia sees no reason to acknowledge it. If our own recent politics is any indication, what’s the downside to going all-in on a lie when it costs you nothing? When you set the terms for your own media coverage defending you?
Countries, including our own, have acted and continue to act with impunity when they have the power to do so. What’s been really concerning to me about the last couple of years is the erosion of public/social shaming as even a weak tool of social pressure. I’m curious to see what the Dutch will want out of this, what the European community will demand, and what Russia will concede. But I’m not holding my breath.