Unfortunately the only folks I trust less than Putin are the media people who keep telling me how bad he is.
Ultimately I think the Ukrainian government was hoping to get a civilian plane shot down to negate the rebels AA weapons and to gain support in the west. There simply was no other reason to route commercial traffic over the area.
And yes Russia and the Ukraine should both pay restitution to the innocent victims.
Among the victims were the President of Poland Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria, the former President of Poland in exile Ryszard Kaczorowski, the chief of the Polish General Staff and other senior Polish military officers, the president of the National Bank of Poland, Polish Government officials, 18 members of the Polish Parliament, senior members of the Polish clergy and relatives of victims of the Katyn massacre.
The group was arriving from Warsaw to attend an event marking the 70th anniversary of the [Katyn] massacre, which took place not far from Smolensk."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Polish_Air_Force_Tu-154_crash
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April 2014...
Did Putin Blow Up the Whole Polish Government in 2010?
A Second Look
A plane crash at Smolensk in Russia four years ago wiped out the Warsaw leadership. It used to be seen as an accident. Now, after Putin's games in Ukraine, people aren't so sure.
Four years ago this week, Polish President Lech Kaczynski was killed in a plane crash near the Katyn Forest in Russia where he was flying to honor the 22,000 Polish officers, lawyers, priests and professors slaughtered there by the Soviets 70 years before.
Ninety-five other military, political and public figures including his wife died on that plane.
One of the more heartbreaking details to emerge was that First Lady Maria Kaczynska's body could be identified only by her nail polish and the inscription inside her wedding ring.
Less than two years before the crash the late president had given a speech warning that if Russian aggression was not stopped in Georgia, which Russia had invaded, it would extend to Ukraine, the Baltics, and possibly Poland as well. "We are here to take up the fight," he said. And many Poles still believe that their president died in the cause of that effort. Physicist Kazimierz Nowaczyk is one of them. ..."
(BIG SNIP)
He makes his case at the link...
Did Putin Blow Up the Whole Polish Government in 2010? A Second Look:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/11/did-putin-blow-up-the-whole-polish-government-in-2010-a-second-look.html
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Note: They are no longer the "opposition". They won the October 2011 election.
Law and Justice (PiS), led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the twin brother of the late President Lech Kaczynski, has presented the first part of the so-called White Book report on the Smolensk tragedy of 10 April last year, days before the release of the official government version.
Law and Justice has been highly critical of both the Russian and Polish investigations into the tragedy which killed 96 politicians and top military brass, among others.
Shortly after the air crash in western Russia, the opposition party, closely associated with the late President Kaczynski, set up its own parliamentary committee headed by MP Antoni Macierewicz. The report represents the conclusions of the committee.
The White Book on Smolensk comprises 20 chapters and contains over 100 additional documents gathered and compiled by the team of Law and Justice MP investigators.
The first part of the report released today deals with alleged shortcomings of the Russian Interstate Aviation Committee's (MAK) report released last year, though all of the criticisms have been made before by Law and Justice.
The second part of the document will be issued tomorrow and will detail criticisms of the Polish government's investigation, the report of which is currently being translated into English and Russian and will be released shortly, possibly on Friday.
One of the conclusions of the first part of the Law and Justice report is that Russian protocol envisaged only the attendance of Prime Minister Donald Tusk at the 70th anniversary commemorations of the 1940 Katyn Massacre. Because of this, says the report, President Kaczynski's arrival three days later in western Russia had been given the status of a private and not official state visit.
This had the consequence of downgrading security arrangements for the party led by Lech Kaczynski, says the report.
"The decision had been taken by the Russian side but it was approved by representatives of Mr. Tusk's government," MP Antoni Macierewicz said today as he launched the report.
"Nevertheless, the decision itself had been in Russian hands. Polish diplomats were informed openly that only Prime Minister Tusk will be guaranteed security, while the President's visit remains of no interest to the Russian side," he said.
Antoni Macierewicz also stressed that the doomed presidential Tupolev 154 had undergone a general overhaul barely a year before the crash at the Aviakor plant in Russian Samara.
Law and Justice reject the conclusions of the Russian report, which blamed pilot error for the crash. Antoni Macierewicz emphasises that air traffic control at the Smolensk airport did not give clear guidance to the pilots as they approached landing.
http://www.thenews.pl/1/9/Artykul/46756,Opposition-publishes-%E2%80%98alternative%E2%80%99-Smolensk-report
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The Polish Heritage Institute
April 10, 2010 - The Smolensk Crash
Was Poland’s President Assassinated?
I thought that this was basically the conclusion that was reached the day that it happened.
Russia plans effectively to revive the KGB under a massive shake-up of its security forces, a respected business daily has reported.
A State Security Ministry, or MGB, would be created from the current Federal Security Service (FSB) , and would incorporate the foreign intelligence service (SVR) and the state guard service (FSO), under the plans. It would be handed all-encompassing powers once possessed by the KGB, the Kommersant newspaper said, citing security service sources.
Like the much-feared KGB, it would also oversee the prosecutions of Kremlin critics, a task currently undertaken by the Investigative Committee, headed by Alexander Bastrykin, a former university classmate of President Putin. The Kremlin has not commented. …
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Not so surprising huh?
“I’m sure the report is well thought out and diligent in its process and therefore there is a response required from Russia,” he said, adding the 298 people aboard had been “murdered”.
"We must see to it that those responsible are punished," he said.
“We knew already, of course. It would be foolish to deny it. Now it is confirmed that the Russians are behind it, while they’ve denied it the whole time.”
The airline needs to share the blame. They flew right over an active battle area where AA missiles were routinely being fired. If any airliner flew over Aleppo, Syria today, and was shot down, they would have to share the blame. Ditto this case.
What do you think it looks like ten miles out, on radar, over a battlefield?
Answer: it's a brand new US Navy Poseidon P-8 reconnaissance aircraft, a military 737.
Then I do recall the USN Vincennes blowing an Iranian passenger jet out of the sky over international waters.
The point being, any airline that flies a jet over an active modern battlefield (Ukraine, Syria etc) must share the blame if it is shot down by a radar-directed missile.
Could as easily been arms from us that got into the wrong hands - by design......
Sad to see he seems to be getting away with it. When he first appeared in TV right after they shot it down he was sweating and I believe really thought that now he has crossed the line and then nothing serious was done about it.
Nope. Obama's CIA snuck behind the border and launched this missile strike to create tension with Russia from which aggression in other theaters can be justified.
What’s sad are the FR Putin fan boys who spring to that greasebag’s defense.
Being an adversary of Obama is all it takes to win the affections of some folks. By that measure, I guess North Korea’s Kim Jong-un is a stand-up guy.