Russians Deny the Obvious

The Russians seem to stick to stories that are impossible to believe to support denials of their covert operations. 

It was like a reminder today when David Satter had an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal that reminded us that the Dutch have not forgotten about MH17, the commercial airliner shot down by Russians. The operators brought over a Buk launcher and took it back to Russia after they did the deed.  The Dutch are now indicting four people for murder and two of them are going to be real hard to prosecute:  "The defendants include Igor Girkin, “defense minister” of the Donetsk People’s Republic, a Russian-backed Ukrainian separatist movement; and Sergei Dubinsky, head of the separatists’ intelligence service..." That didn't stop the Dutch from pushing for the indictment (technically, it is a joint task force but the Dutch lead it).  

The whole thing took place in 2014, and with the news cycle the way it is, almost anybody who followed the story has forgotten about it already.  The rest of the world wants to forget about it but the families of those killed and a few governments won't let it go.  We should listen to them.  

This was at a time when the Russians had a story ready to explain this away within minutes of the aircraft going down.  When that story didn't work very well, they tried a couple of others including one that said it was a Ukrainian jet shooting at Putin's aircraft passing its way.  The Dutch had hard evidence and took almost two years to complete an investigation.  By that time, most of the world's web readers had forgotten why this report was written.  By the time a case is brought (if they can issue warrants and find these guys crossing a border somewhere there is extradition) it will be years more.  It doesn't matter how long it takes.  

The Russians are accountable for this and deny any involvement.  It was a covert operation gone bad.  The cover stories were preposterous and the visible and audible evidence was pointing in a direction the Russians denied.  Their plausible deniability went out the window, but they stuck to stories that were unbelievable.  Russian involvement in foreign elections has followed the same model with the same result.  The Germans, French, and U.S. are pretty unhappy with the Russians and rightfully so.  They are sticking to denials that are incredible.