Russian Soldier’s Text Messages With Girlfriend Were Major Clue In Malasyia Airlines Flight MH17 Investigation
International investigators on Wednesday revealed the names of four suspects in the July 17, 2014, shootdown of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, which killed all 298 on board — including one United States citizen. They named a high-ranking officer in Russia’s military intelligence agency known as the GRU as one of the perpetrators of the atrocity, as The Inquisitr reported earlier. The investigation was able to pinpoint the Russian military unit that fired the missile that brought down the Boeing 777-200 — with one of the key clues coming from a surprising source.
As part of a press briefing on Wednesday in the Netherlands, Dutch prosecutors released a series of text messages between a Russian soldier and a young woman believed to be his girlfriend or lover. Those flirtatious messages confirmed to investigators that the third battalion of the Russian army’s 53rd anti-aircraft missile brigade was in Ukraine at the time of the shootdown, according to a report by Australia’s Courier and Mail newspaper.
In the text message exchange between the soldier (whose name was not released) and the woman — identified only as “Anastasia” — the woman asks where the soldier’s battalion is headed. At first, the soldier replies only that his destination is “a big secret,” and, “if somebody finds out, heads will roll, I can only give a hint.”
However, when she pressed him on whether the destination is Ukraine, the soldier replied, “Well… look, you are not only beautiful but also smart,” a remark which investigators interpret as clearly confirming that the woman has guessed correctly.
In the text exchange, the soldier says that he belongs to the second battalion, but that as the unit traveled, “cool guys from the third drove with us, so we went completely nuts,” according to an account of the text exchange by news.com.au.
Of the shootdown’s 298 victims, 38 were Australian nationals, while 196 were Dutch. One of the Dutch passengers, 19-year-old Quinn Lucas Schansman, was also an American citizen, according to ABC News.
The American on Flight MH17: Quinn Lucas Schansman: http://t.co/eIGiuEIGoT pic.twitter.com/Y0xCLhitNU
— ABC News (@ABC) July 18, 2014
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement, posted to Twitter, on Wednesday. “We call upon Russia to… ensure that any indicted individuals currently in Russia face justice,” the statement reads.
Three of the four suspects — whose names were announced on Wednesday — are Russians, and the fourth is a pro-Russian Ukrainian.
The Russian state-owned propaganda outlet RT.com reported that Russia denied what it called “absolutely baseless” charges. The outlet reiterated what has long been the official Russian account of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 shootdown, calling for the release of “radar data and ‘documents’ proving the projectile that downed the passenger jet was a Ukrainian one.” The Russian government also accused Ukraine of introducing “fabricated evidence” into the investigation.
Dutch investigators dismissed Russia’s “alternate theories” — calling some “deliberate untruths” — and restated their finding that the “the downing happened from a Buk missile launched from south of Snizhne,” according to independent researcher Aric Toler, who posted his account of the investigators’ press briefing via Twitter.
Snizhne is a town in the war-torn area of Donetsk, Ukraine, controlled by pro-Russian separatists, the region where the Flight MH17 crashed, as The Guardian reported.
