Russians Quick to Deny

The Dutch Safety Board issued its report on the downing of MH17 in the Ukraine on 17 July.  It is not unusual for aircraft reports to take a long time, and compared to others, this one was published quickly.  Considering rebels held the territory, the reconstruction of the aircraft was done very well.

It didn't take the Russians long to start their versions of "the facts".  A Wall Street Journal article today says "The Russian maker of the antiaircraft missile, Almaz-Antey, tried to cast doubt on the Dutch findings in advance. It invited hundreds of journalists Tuesday morning in a complex in outer Moscow, where Chief Executive Yan Novikov said its experiments showed that if MH17 was downed by a Buk system, it was by a different missile type than Dutch investigators specified, suggesting Ukraine was to blame."  The core reporting of this news says the Russians are denying they had this missile in their inventory.  A remarkably similar version of that missile is in Syria.  Maybe they don't have them in their inventory because they give them away.  

The one Russian propaganda version that was shown up by the Dutch report was the one that said a fighter jet from Ukraine was firing at Putin's aircraft when it struck MH17.  Even the Russians couldn't believe that one.  It didn't stop them from offering it as an explanation for how the aircraft was shot down.  The second version of the story was that dead bodies had been put in the aircraft and shot down by a Ukrainian fighter to discredit the rebels in Ukraine.  These are incredible stories that don't even approximate the real facts in evidence.  Still they offered them,  and expected a few people to believe them, even though they were incredible.  That makes the trip to Almaz-Antey all the more unbelievable.  Facts don't matter to the Russians, unless they create them.  

This goes to credibility.  When the Russians publish stories even they can't believe, we are not going to trust anything they say.  "We are going to attack ISIS" should come to mind first.  Somehow, we have national leadership that listens to what they say and takes them at their word.  They should know better.