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Putin Under the Gun for Downing Malaysian Jet
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
July 18, 2014
All Rights Reserved.
Exploding in
midair from a suspected Russian BUK M-1 or M-2 -tank-mounted
surface-to-air-missile, Malaysian Airline MH17 lost contact with radar July 17,
plummeting in a fireball into a Ukrainian field.
Pro-Russian separatists are strongly suspected as downing the passenger
jet by mistake, losing all 295 crew and passengers en route from Amsterdam to
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Only a day
before a Ukrainian SU-25 fighter jet was shot out of the sky by a Russian
fighter jet, forcing the Ukrainian pilot to eject safely in Ukrainian territory. While Moscow dithers on accepting
responsibility, U.S. and U.N. air-safety investigators try to locate the black
boxes and secure the crime scene in the heart of pro-Russian separatist rebel
territory. After getting slapped
with more sanctions yesterday by the U.S. and European Union, Putin already
shows a siege mentality, making communication more difficult.
Pouring through the bodies and smoldering wreckage, aviation crash
experts hope to know what caused and who’s responsible to killing some 295
civilians, ferrying some of the world’s leading experts to a global AIDS
conference in Melbourne, Australia.
All fingers point toward Russian President Vladimir Putin’s role in ferrying
heavy military hardware to pro-Russian separatists hoping to extricate
themselves from Kiev’s rule.
Ukraine’s feisty 49-year-old President Petro Poroshenko flat-out blamed Russia
for supplying arms to Russian separatists.
After annexing Crimea March 1, Putin’s showed no regard for Ukraine’s
sovereignty, insisting Russian speakers in Ukraine supersede Ukraine’s
sovereignty. U.S. President Barack Obama has made a forceful case against Russian meddling in Ukraine. Poroshenko insists to start any
constructive dialogue with the Kremlin, Putin must give back Crimea.
Showing no interest in restoring international relations, Putin continues
to occupy the strategic Crimean peninsula, home to Russia’s warm-water Black Sea
Fleet. “The facts will inevitably
come in, and if it shows that Russian-supported rebels did this, the whole
conversation about Ukraine changes,” said Alexander Golts, a military expert
with the online journal Yezhednevny Zhumal.
Putin went on a rampage after watching former Russian-backed Ukrainian
President Viktor Yanukovich fall in Kiev Feb. 22 to pro-Western demonstrators. Putin blamed the West for fomenting
a coup while he hosted the Sochi Winter Olympics. When the dust settled Feb. 23,
Yanukovich was driven out of Kiev by a pro-Western mob, hoping to eventually
join the EU and NATO. Putin can’t stomach the anti-Russia
sentiment that toppled Yanukovich last November for canceling an EU bailout
package.
Slapping Moscow with additional economic and travel sanctions, the U.S.
and EU hoped Putin would finally get the message to stop meddling in Ukraine. Now that the downing of MH17 seems
linked to Moscow supplying arms to pro-Russian separatists, the international
community looks poised to ostracize Moscow.
When the G8 announced March 24 that Moscow would no longer be part of the
G8, it sent shockwaves through the Russian stock and currency markets. Whether admitted to or not, it’s
possible separatists obtained the BUK rocket launchers from the Ukrainian army. Wherever separatists got the
tank-mounted surface-to-air-missiles, Putin still has a responsibility to play
good neighbor not trying to undermine Poroshenko’s Ukraine because of his intent
for forge closer ties to the U.S. and EU.
U.S. and EU officials should hold firm in their insistence to return
Crimea to Ukraine.
Unanswered questions remain about
how pro-Russian separatists obtained the BUK surface-to-air anti-aircraft
batteries. Russian state media
insist that Ukrainian forces fired mistakenly on the airliner. Yet Russian propagandists Sergei
Kurginyan admitted that “competent people” were dispatched from Russian to aid
rebels in using the BUK surface-to-air anti-aircraft defense system. “It’s quite likely that if the
rebels obtained BUK units, they took them from Ukrainian force. It’s a forward deployed weapons [and] it’s know that Kiev force had
them in the border areas, including Donetsk,” said Golts, making no sense. With Russian downing an SU-25
bomber, it’s logical that Russian-backed forces lashed out at what they thought
was a military cargo or spy plane.
Kremlin officials have a vested interest in recovering the flight data recorders
to prevent Russia from getting blamed.
Putin’s involvement—no matter how peripheral—opens up a can of worms for
the Kremlin, which continues to wreck the Russian brand as a respectable world
power. Whatever dependency the EU
has on Russian natural gas and petroleum, the West can’t sit idly by while Putin
runs roughshod over sovereign countries.
Whether or not he laments the 1991 demise of the Soviet Union, Putin
can’t coerce former Soviet satellites into keeping an old Russian yoke. If any former Soviet state wishes
closer ties to the U.S. and EU, Putin can’t go into a tantrum because he wants
control. “This tragedy has shocked
and galvanized Europe, and really tough sectoral sanctions and a united front
against us are what we can look forward to,” said Sergei Strokan, foreign
affairs columnist for the Moscow Daily Kommersant, attesting to how Putin
continues to wreck the Russian brand.
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