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The search for truth has been going on for almost six years, and has also been underway in court since March. At the Schiphol court complex, not far from Amsterdam airport, where a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet took off on July 17, 2014, judges, prosecutors, witnesses and defense attorneys are investigating who is responsible for shooting down the machine in the east. from Ukraine. The death of passengers and crew aboard Flight MH17 is one of the bloodiest episodes of the conflict in Ukraine, clarifying the circumstances of a gigantic undertaking.
Dutch prosecutors indict four high-ranking pro-Russian separatists, three Russians and one Ukrainian who fought against the government in Kiev. The charges: causing a plane crash that resulted in death and murder in 298 cases. They are accused of having acquired the Russian Buk air defense system used to shoot down the machine, and of being responsible for its use.
However, investigators have made it clear that they view the trial of the four defendants only as part of the investigation. In the eyes of the Joint Investigative Investigation Team (JIT), the separatists only acted as individual links in a “chain” between the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Russia.
Above all, there is the question: what role did Moscow play, which until today has supported separatists in eastern Ukraine financially, politically and militarily? To get a little closer to the response, JIT released several snippets of intercepted phone calls in mid-November as part of a witness call.
Who is “Vladimir Ivanovich”?
A name that appears repeatedly on it is that of a certain “Vladimir Ivanovich”. The cuts suggest that in July 2014 it played a major role in the Moscow-backed separatist military operations.
In a conversation between two fighters, he is known as the “commander” of an operation. In another, apparently Igor Girkin, the tallest of the four accused in the MH17 trial, complains: “Vladimir Ivanovich must give me orders, but not send my people above my head.”
In another recording, “Vladimir Ivanovich” according to investigators can be heard in conversation with Alexander Borodai, then “Prime Minister” of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. Borodai’s question to him indicates that “Vladimir Ivanovich” has an overview of the fighting: “Is it possible for our helicopters to attack?” Finally, other places in the recorded conversations suggest that “Vladimir Ivanovich” is concerned about the acquisition of military equipment and possibly weapons.
But who is “Vladimir Ivanovich”?
The Bellingcat research platform and the Russian Internet newspaper “The Insider”, which have repeatedly published important research on the launch of MH17 in the past, have now identified the man. Consequently, it is Andrej Iwanowitsch Burlaka, who is part of the FSB leadership.
Today’s colonel general was already in charge of border guard operational personnel, who are subject to internal intelligence, when MH17 was shot down. Burlaka is also the first deputy chief of the FSB border guards. This in turn reports directly to the FSB’s top boss, Alexander Bortnikow. The fact that Burlaka, a top FSB man, was involved in separatist operations, is said to show how strongly the Russian internal secret service directed military operations in Donbass and the FSB’s senior leadership was involved.
Burlaka, born in 1965, comes from the small town of Sowetskaja Gawan, in the Far East of Russia. It made its way through the hierarchy of spy agencies: after training in 1986, it was deployed on the Soviet border with Afghanistan and Iran. In 1995, after studying at the Secret Service Academy in Moscow, he returned to the Pacific coast in his hometown of Khabarovsk, initially as commander of regional border units and then as director of the border guards.
There is no public information on its use in the Donbass war. However, Bellingcat was able to understand Burlaka’s air travel in 2014 and 2015, also through leaked or hacked documents and intercepted phone calls. Subsequently, the secret service agent frequently flew from Moscow to Rostov-on-Don, Krasnodar, and the Russian annexed Crimean Black Sea peninsula. There are three control centers for Ukraine’s operations in Russia. The day after the launch of MH17 on the afternoon of July 18, 2014, Lt. Gen. Burlaka flew back to Moscow from Rostov-on-Don.
There are very few photos
There are very few images of the man with a gaunt face, a high forehead, and short brown hair. One shows him on a state television news show in 2013, one of which honors a veteran in Altai in 2012.
Bellingcat and “The Insider” have been working for months to identify the FSB man. According to his own information, he was able to find it through the mobile phone number he was using, hack separatist messages from a Viber chat and compare votes. He had briefly spoken in a television documentary about 100 years of border patrol that aired on the Department of Defense television channel; The researchers used this voice sample to compare.
If “Vladimir Ivanovich”, as suggested by intercepted phone calls, was really responsible for the distribution of military equipment and possibly also military equipment, was he also part of the chain of command for the use of the Russian Buk missile? Audio files released so far cannot prove this. For JIT researchers, it will now be a matter of further investigating the activities of the FSB man and identifying the next links in the chain, right up to the leadership of Moscow.
