MH17: Guilty Rebels 'Worse for Moscow than KAL-007' (Gazeta, Russia)
"Now, with the Ukrainian question, we don't in fact have
even a single ally. Five minutes after the incident we were completely
isolated. ... If the separatists are found to have shot down the aircraft, it
would be worse for Russia than the downing of the South Korean Boeing was for
the USSR. ... Attempts to avoid economic collapse in the country could pull us
into a full-scale war, possibly even a nuclear war. That, of course, would mean
breaking the pattern of diplomacy and sweeping the pieces from the chessboard.
However, from the beginning, I have felt that the threat of total geopolitical
defeat, and to all of Russian civilization, which is what this has become,
would push us into a corner."
GeorgyBovt discusses the
potential international consequences of the Boeing plane crash.
One
can spend a long time teetering on the brink of a major war, but not
forever. Sooner or later, military commanders (on both sides) will emerge,
drawn out by an outburst of militarist hysteria and the scent of blood. That
will fundamentally change the course of events.
All
of a sudden, the situation which seemed yesterday to be merely “extremely dangerous,”
becomes catastrophic and out of control. That moment has come in the Ukraine
crisis.
The
downed Malaysian Airliner is the point of no return. It is the shot in Sarajevo [the trigger
for World War I]. The perpetrators of the tragedy will not only find
themselves "on the wrong side of history," but more likely than not (in
the best case scenario), in the dock, and there are certainly not going to be
any victors in this story.
The
answer to the first question, "who?," will likely be had in the near
future: in the world we live in today, every conversation is bugged and every
person is under surveillance. If it was possible for the Americans to intercept
and make public discussions between the Soviet Air Force pilots who shot down a
South Korean Boeing back in 1983, then this time the necessary evidence will
surely be quicker in coming and more abundant [Korean Airlines Flight 007].
The
question remains, though, whether the evidence will be seen as objective - and
not tampered with. The stakes have reached unprecedented levels. In the war of
information being unleashed around this tragedy, there will be no prisoners of
war taken.
In
the aftermath of the incident in September 1983, eyewitnesses recall that the
threat of war was pungent. It was one of the tensest moments of the Cold War
since the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the USSR was more seriously isolated than
at any time in its post-war history. This, despite the fact that we had the
Warsaw Pact at the time.
Many
now believe that to be the moment when, faced with the prospect of war with the
West, the Soviet Union began its collapse. Now, with the Ukrainian question, we
don't in fact have even a single ally. Five minutes after the incident we were
completely isolated.
Even
before any investigation, the information war has begun with references made to
“authoritative” yet anonymous sources alongside propaganda by all parties to
the crisis.
To
the West, the Kiev government is largely snow white and squeaky clean, a victim of
aggression by Russia and “pro-Russian” insurgents (no other kind seem to
exist). Information from official Ukrainian sources is most often not
questioned. Articles about the possible involvement of Ukrainian forces in the
destruction of the plane are almost entirely absent in Western media, although this
has been our sad experience. The same occurred in the early 2000s during Ukrainian anti-aircraft
defense system trials, when a Tupolev Tu-154 flying home from
Tel Aviv was accidentally shot down [Siberian
Airlines Flight 1812].
At
the same time, when it comes to the separatists, the probability of their having
control of an operating Buk anti-aircraft missile battery
(from which, the likelihood is, the fateful missile was launched), is not in
dispute. On June 29th, the separatists boasted that they were able to take
control of Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile regiment A-1402 in Donetsk, which
included Buk missile batteries.
This
news was widely reported in Russian media, but its significance wasn’t
appreciated at the time.
Ukraine's
National Security and Defense Council (SNBU) acknowledged
as much, but assured that the missile batteries were inoperative. Can the SNBU be believed under these circumstances? The entire
Ukrainian media appeared to, but now the fact that it was said to be
inoperative seems to have been forgotten. Just as no one will remember
(separatist leader) Strelkov’s announcement about the
alleged shooting down of a Ukrainian Antonov-26 cargo aircraft, which was
reported at the same time the Boeing was hit, but which has apparently disappeared.
Rocket
launches located in a particular place can be clearly established via satellite,
and the satellite is American. Alas, that is the only information that
will be believed by the world.
It
is also noteworthy that the plane was shot down on the same day that the West
announced new sanctions. Russia, which is supposedly to blame for everything happening
in Ukraine, could apparently bring it all to an end by shouting “retreat!” And the
nightmare doesn't end there. The language of ultimatums and blunt pressure
seems unavoidable for some time to come.
For
some reason, until the disaster occurred, no one thought to close Ukrainian
airspace to civil aviation. There is, of course, according to the preferred version
of events, a more mature, European-style democracy now revealing itself to the
world. But in the meantime, civilian aircraft are being shot down there. In this
sense, the cause of the airline tragedy is a lack of understanding in Europe about
what is actually going on in the country.
So
let us examine the two commonly-held versions of events:
VERSION 1. The aircraft
was shot down by Ukrainian troops.
At
first glance, this sounds like the wildest theory direct from the Russian intelligence
agencies. This version, of course, could easily be considered an element of information
warfare: the real target of the Ukrainian security services wasn't the
Malaysian airlines flight, but the Russian presidential plane on its way back from Brazil
at around the same time (in fact, it wasn't at the air at the time).
In
this case, of use is the testimony
of Spanish air traffic controllers who were keeping track of the Malaysian aircraft,
and mentioned on Twitter that just two minutes before the tragedy, a pair of
Ukrainian fighter jets appeared alongside it. If this is true, the plane may
have been shot down not by Buk missiles, but by
air-to-air missiles.
The
power of the explosion would have been less, and the explosion would have been different,
which could be established by investigators from the wreckage. To get your hair
to stand on end, all you need to do is look at the paint job of the Malaysian aircraft
and the Russian plane: they have the same blue-white-red tricolor, and the
outlines of a 777 and an Ilyushin Il-96 are very
similar. At a distance it is hard to distinguish the two.
A
softer option is that the Ukrainian plane shot down the Malaysian Airlines
flight by mistake, taking it for a Russian reconnaissance flight. This version
fits in with information in Russian circles from the day before the disaster
that the Ukrainians had redeployed the Buk missile
system to the area (this, in turn, has been denied by the Americans).
Any
version that implicates Ukraine would be dramatically in favor of Russia. Kiev
would no longer be the innocent calf of democracy suckling at the teat of the
European cash cow, but nearly a gangster regime.
Although
the West would talk of a mistake rather than a crime, the image of the
Ukrainian regime would be forever tarnished.
However
the first dispatches from the West, with reference to various information
sources, don't support this version. The Pentagon asserts that the plane was hit
by a "ground to air" missile. Ukraine's Security Council, in turn, has
posted intercepted conversations between the separatists, indicating quite unambiguously
that they shot down the plane thinking it to be either an Il-76 or an AN-26 Ukrainian
transport plane.
This,
at least in the short term, is the basis for the second version, which is worse
for us.
VERSION 2.
Separatists shot down the plane.
This
would be worse for Russia than the downing of the South Korean Boeing was for
the USSR. Regardless of how the Buk missiles ended up
in the hands of the separatists, this would also strengthen accusations that Moscow
has been supplying them with arms. They would no longer be seen as separatists,
but terrorists, whose place is not at the negotiating table in Kiev, but at the
International Criminal Court in the Hague. That is the best case scenario.
Moscow
could also be accused of allowing Russian “volunteers” to help the separatists repair
"inoperative" Buk systems. For Russia, that
would be a very bad outcome, as there were also Buk missile
batteries captured from the Ukrainian military in Crimea, which have since turned
up with the separatists.
Third
tier sanctions, sectoral sanctions, would not be slow
in following. [In fact, they were agreed to July 29]. They would be imposed
without regard to the economic costs to Western business. This threat was
already sounded during the first crisis talks between Putin and Obama (held at
Moscow's request).
It
is entirely possible that all this talk will create a completely new trajectory
for the development of the Ukraine crisis.
What
immediately catches one's attention is the soft account of the Putin-Obama
conversation from Russian sources, which emphasize that in addition to Ukraine,
they allegedly spoke about the situation in the Middle East and other
international affairs, whereas American sources only mention a discussion of
sanctions.
From
the beginning of the Ukraine crisis, it has always appeared to me that we are
dealing with a moment in history when all rational economic calculations are
brushed aside for the sake of much larger political considerations. In a
situation like this, not a single industry or chamber of commerce in any
European country would whimper, even in countries with strong economic ties to
Russia.
What
can we do? The most rational course of action in such a situation would be a
decisive break with the separatists, allow their convictions, and of course,
terminate any assistance being provided them.
If
this was a game designed to make Kiev more compliant to Moscow by putting rifles
into the hands the Girkin-Strelkovist separatists,
then that game has played itself out. It has to be taken to a different level, perhaps
economic, and projected into the long term. People who brought down a civilian
airliner cannot be considered allies, or even aids.
The
alternative to such immediate and action and getting ahead of the curve, would
be the complete isolation of Russia and the imposition of sanctions,which our
economy will survive as long as they don't extend beyond a one- to three-year
horizon. Either way, the effect will in one way or another impact all of us.
Attempts
to avoid economic collapse in the country could pull us into a full-scale war,
possibly even a nuclear war. That, of course, would mean breaking the pattern
of diplomacy and sweeping the pieces from the chessboard. However, from the
beginning, I have felt that the threat of total geopolitical defeat, and to all
of Russian civilization, which is what this has become, would push us into a
corner.
Internally,
the current Russian leadership is prepared for this scenario. Least of all because
they don’t want to come to the same fate as Mohammar Qaddafi,
who found his life ignominiously cut short outside of a sewer pipe. That sad
tale began with the Lockerbie case, when two members of the Libyan secret
services blew up an American airliner over Scotland. There was a belated
admission to the crime and generous compensation was paid, but it didn't help.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
If
the situation were to develop further, it could lead to the direct involvement
of NATO forces in Ukrainian conflict. Russian and NATO troops look at each
other across the Dnieper
River. Already, not even the most catastrophic escalation of the crisis seems
impossible.
One
other possibility would be to talk about a joint peace-building operation by
the West and Russia in southeast Ukraine. Today though, that seems a little too
idealistic.
Now
we have seen a passenger aircraft shot down, but have not seen acts of
terrorism against nuclear power stations or critical infrastructure. That may happen
yet.
