Top Russian intelligence general ran Ukraine separatists when MH17 was shot down, report finds

MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine in in July 2014
MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine in in July 2014

One of the men charged over the shootdown of Malaysian airlines flight MH17 has refused to deny taking orders from a senior Russian general who has been named as a potential suspect.

Colonel General Andrei Burlaka, the deputy head of the Russian Federal Security Service’s border guards, is four rungs down from Vladimir Putin himself in the FSB chain of command and would be the most senior Russian official implicated in the disaster.

According to an investigation published this week, Gen Burlaka directed Russian backed-separatists in Ukraine and was in charge of supplying them with weapons at the time the BUK missile launcher that downed the aircraft crossed the border.

The Kremlin has refused to comment on the allegations.

The men he directed would have included Igor "Strelkov" Girkin, who was the defence minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and is being prosecuted in the Netherlands for the murders of 298 passengers and crew of the Malaysian airlines flight.

Asked by users on his Vkontakte page whether it was true that he answered to Gen Burlaka, Mr Girkin wrote only that "the rebels did not shoot down the Boeing" but would not comment further. He has previously admitted to knowing the man.

Bellingcat and the Insider, its Russian partner organisation, said on Tuesday that they had used telephone databases and facial and voice recognition technology to identify him as “Vladimir Ivanovich”, a shadowy figure who the MH17 joint investigation team have asked for witnesses to help identify.

“Vladimir Ivanovich” is heard speaking in four of five recordings of intercepted telephone calls released by the MH17 Joint Investigation Team last year, and is referred to several times by separatist commanders in other conversations.

The conversations suggest “Vladimir Ivanovich” was a senior FSB official in charge of directing the separatist war-effort against Ukraine from at least early July 2014.

He appears to have been senior to any of the commanders on the ground, including Mr Girkin, and at one point ordered a troublesome unit to be disarmed.

He also approved or rejected commanders’ requests for night vision goggles, ammunition, and armoured vehicles.

Dutch prosecutors say the missile launcher that shot down MH17 came from the 53rd anti aircraft missile Brigade of the Russian army and crossed the border just a few days before the disaster on July 17, 2014.

Mr Girkin, a former FSB colonel who commanded the DPR’s militia from April until late summer 2014, is one of four men being tried in absentia in the Netherlands for intentionally bringing down the aircraft and the murders of the 298 victims.

He has always maintained that the irregular militia he led did not shoot down the Boeing, but has refused to answer when asked if that meant the regular Russian military was responsible.

The trial of Mr Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky, Oleg Pulatov and Leonid Kharchenko, is expected to resume on June 8.