Free Republic

The Russian arms manufacturer says it has begun work on the next generation of the Buk medium-range advanced defense missile system. The V.V. Tikhomirova Scientific Research Institute of Instrument Design announced on Tuesday that work has begun on the development of new versions of the Buk self-propelled medium-range surface-to-air missile system. "The management of Almaz-Antey, our parent company, has given us the task of working out a proposal for the further development of the Buk air defense missile system," Yuriy Beliy, NIIP's general director, told RIA Novosti on Tuesday. "With Almaz-Antey, we will present our proposals to the Ministry of...

Fragments of a suspected Russian missile system have been found at the Flight MH17 crash site in Ukraine, investigators in the Netherlands say. They say the parts, possibly from a Buk surface-to-air system, are "of particular interest" and could help show who was behind the crash. But they say they have not proved their "causal connection" with the crash. MH17 crashed on land held by Russian-backed rebels in July 2014, killing all 298 on board. There were 283 passengers, including 80 children, and 15 crew members on the Malaysian Airlines airliner. About two-thirds of those who died were Dutch nationals,...

RUSSIAN-backed rebels in Ukraine’s east believed they had shot down a Ukraine Airforce fighter jet as disturbing new footage shows them ransacking the luggage of passengers and crew from Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17. A year ago today, 298 passengers and crew including 38 Australian citizens and residents died aboard the Kuala Lumpur bound commercial flight after it was shot down over east Ukraine, 40km from the Russian border. Much footage exists particularly on the internet of the aftermath of the downed airliner, smouldering over three main wreckage sites about the rebel stronghold of the embattled Dontesk region. But, after a...

A new independent report finds that Russia doctored photos to implicate the Ukrainian military in the shooting down of the Malaysian airliner MH17 last July, casting doubt on Russian claims that neither separatists armed by Russia nor its own military were to blame for the disaster. The report is the latest by the independent analysis group, Bellingcat, which has been using open source material -- often video and photos posted on social media -- to provide hard evidence that Russia has been sending troops and weapons into eastern Ukraine to support rebels there, despite denials from the Kremlin. MH17 was...

This is a recent report put out by Bellingcat which shows that the Russkies photoshopped their alleged evidence of Ukrainians shooting down MH17. This had been debunked through other means, for example, that the Ukrainian SU25, which was one of the possible culprits for this, is a ground attack plane that is too slow and can't reach the altitude the Russkies were claiming. Subsequently the Russkies got into a Wikipedia war trying to upgrade the SU-25 on the internet in order to fool stupid people. Nevertheless, if you still need more, this report goes into great detail showing that the...

The fragment forms part of an exhibition marking 70 years since end of WWII A Russian museum plans to exhibit a plane fragment from downed flight MH17, despite the fact Dutch investigators are still combing the area for evidence to establish who exactly shot down the Boeing 777. Local media published photos of the fragment brought from the militant-held area of Donetsk by a Russian veteran's organisation, to the museum in the Russian coastal town of Eisk near the Ukrainian border. The so-called souvenir will form part of an exhibition commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory over...

Russian secret services may have executed the troops suspected of shooting down Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, say sources involved in the investigation of the crash over eastern Ukraine. The Dutch-led probe is leaning towards a conclusion that a BUK missile fired from rebel-held territory downed the Boeing 777, killing all 298 on board. And it is highly likely the aircraft was shot out of the sky by Russian military personnel, according to a report by the Netherlands' state broadcaster NOS, citing anonymous sources in the police and the group of investigators working on the probe into the plane's loss.

A report released today by German investigative group CORRECT!V concludes that a Buk surface to air missile launcher operated by the 53rd Russian Air Defense Brigade shot down passenger jet MH17. The report, titled MH17: Searching for the Truth, marries fresh testimony from military experts, separatist fighters and residents of east Ukraine, with photo, video, social media and satellite evidence to produce a compelling account of the events that led to the tragic deaths of all the Malaysian Airlines flight’s 298 passengers and crew on July 17 2014.

Russia has adopted a new military doctrine, keeping North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) expansion first among its list of primary external threats. The revised doctrine [PDF in Russian - 29 pages with 58 sections], signed by President Vladimir Putin on Friday, is comparable to a 2010 version, which also listed NATO expansion as a primary threat. Additions to the doctrine include a highlighting of the threat from "global strategic antiballistic missile systems" and a Russian goal to protect its interests in the Arctic region, according to Russian state-funded news organization RT. The doctrine’s adoption comes days after Ukraine took a...

Russia and other UN Security Council members are unhappy Washington is blocking attempts to pressure Israel over its offensive in Lebanon, Vitaly Churkin, its ambassador to the United Nations, said. Churkin told the Izvestia newspaper in an interview published today that the US position had weakened the position of the United Nations on the crisis. "Discontent has been rising recently among Security Council member countries with the fact that the US is prepared to block any decision which would bring pressure to bear on Israel," Churkin said. "This discontent is expressed practically every day by many delegations during consultations on...

Hopefully, Russians realize that our House of Representatives often passes thunderous resolutions to pander to special interests, which have no bearing on the thinking or actions of the U.S. government. Last week, the House passed such a resolution 411-10. As ex-Rep. Ron Paul writes, House Resolution 758 is so "full of war propaganda that it rivals the rhetoric from the chilliest era of the Cold War." H. R. 758 is a Russophobic rant full of falsehoods and steeped in superpower hypocrisy. Among the 43 particulars in the House indictment is this gem: "The Russian Federation invaded the Republic of Georgia...

As Vladimir Putin’s tanks begin to roll forth from Russia like Sauron’s legions from Mordor, a pair of American villains is working hard to undermine our resolve against the greatest threat from Europe to American values and power, and indeed to world peace, since Adolf Hitler.Evgeny Feldman, a photographer for the maverick Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, recently visited a book store in Moscow and tweeted [1] a photograph from amongst its shelves. Among volumes on one topical shelf such as The Crimes of the U.S.A. and The Third World War and Forward to Victory, in which authors offered bloodthirsty...

Former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul claimed Sunday that the U.S. and European Union may share responsibility for the downing of a Malaysia Airlines plane over Ukraine last week. “While western media outlets rush to repeat government propaganda on the event, there are a few things they will not report,” Paul, a former Republican congressman from Texas, wrote on his website. “They will not report that the crisis in Ukraine started late last year, when the EU and U.S. overthrew the elected Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych. Without U.S.-sponsored ‘regime change,’ it is unlikely that hundreds would have been killed in...

Former Congressman Ron Paul defended the Russian government on Sunday and slammed Western leaders for spreading "propaganda" after a Malaysian Airlines plane was allegedly shot down by Kremlin-backed separatists in Ukraine. "Western politicians and media joined together to gain the maximum propaganda value from the disaster. It had to be Russia; it had to be Putin, they said," the former presidential candidate wrote. "While western media outlets rush to repeat government propaganda on the event, there are a few things they will not report." One of those unreported things, Paul claimed in his weekly "Texas Straight Talk" column, was the...

BUENOS AIRES, August 5 (RIA Novosti) – Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro dismissed Tuesday accusations of Moscow’s alleged role in the deadly Malaysian passenger plane crash as “primitive.” “Accusing the Russian Federation of destroying the Malaysian Boeing during the flight is horrifying primitivism,” Castro wrote in an article published in Cuba’s Granma newspaper. “Neither President Vladimir Putin, nor Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov nor other Russian leaders could have ever done such a stupid thing,” Castro stressed. Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed in eastern Ukraine on July 17. All 298 people on board,...

Russian state TV has broadcast what it claimed to be a photo of the moment Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down by a Ukrainian fighter jet. But many commentators dismissed the image as a "crude fake". Late on 14 November, Russia's state-controlled Channel One TV broadcast what appeared to be a satellite photo of a passenger plane and a jet fighter in the skies above Donetsk, a separatist stronghold in Ukraine. It was, the report said, the moment the Ukrainian jet fired a missile at MH17.

Russia is placing civilian flights at risk by dispatching jet fighters and bombers into European airspace without following safety procedures, according to Nato’s secretary general. Jens Stoltenberg told the Telegraph that Nato fighters had intercepted Russian military aircraft over 100 times so far this year, compared with 30 such incidents in 2013.

Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to leave the G20 summit early after Western leaders lambasted him Saturday over the crisis in Ukraine and threatened further sanctions. “I guess I’ll shake your hand, but I have only one thing to say to you: you need to get out of Ukraine,” Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper told Putin, according to his spokesman Jason MacDonald, Reuters reports. President Barack Obama said the United States was at the forefront of “opposing Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, which is a threat to the world, as we saw in the appalling shoot-down of MH17.” German Chancellor Angela...

Russian experts have claimed Malaysian Boeing MH17 was shot down by a Ukrainian warplane and not a ground to air missile. This follows the release of 'leaked' satellite images which show a missile streaking towards the passenger plane, produced tonight by Russia's main state broadcaster. It was claimed that the space pictures were from a British or US satellite.

Several commentators pointed out that the "Malaysia" logo on the plane from the photograph was in the wrong place. Maksim Kats, a Russian blogger, said the plane in the picture looked like a slightly altered version of the one that tops the search results if you Google "Boeing view from above" in Russian. It also happens to be a publicity photo of a Boeing 767, not a 777, which was shot down over Ukraine in July. Others noted that the fighter jet looked different from an Su-25 - the type which the Russian media had consistently claimed shot down MH17....