Russian General Identified as ‘Figure of Interest’ in MH17 Downing

January 24, 2025
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A reputable international investigative organization says it has recognized a senior Russian preferred as a determination of the hobby in the downing of a civilian airliner over Japanese Ukraine in 2014.

The Bellingcat investigative organization — which makes use of sophisticated virtual techniques to research open-source audio and visible records — issued a report on December eight alleging that a man identified on intercepted communications as “Delfin” (Dolphin) is retired Russian Colonel General Nikolai Tkachyov, who’s currently serving as the lead inspector of Russia’s Central Military District.

The Dutch-led Joint Team (JIT) investigated the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine. It issued its findings in September 2016, previously posted audio files of 5 intercepted communications among individuals identified by the pseudonyms Delfin and Orion.

The JIT is looking for additional information approximately the guys, although it remains uncertain what feasible role they’ll have played in the airliner’s downing.

The JIT stated in a December eight declaration that it “has taken note” of the Bellingcat report but declined comment.

MH17 was shot down over Ukraine’s Donetsk region’s struggling area on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 human beings. The JIT concluded the aircraft was shot down from territory managed by using Russia-subsidized separatists with a Buk anti-plane device introduced into Ukraine from Russia and turned into lively again across the border rapidly afterward.

The Russian authorities and the separatists deny duty and provide several other theories about the tragedy. In July 2015, Russia vetoed a U.N. Decision that would have mounted an international tribunal to prosecute those deemed responsible.

Russia similarly denies any involvement in Ukraine’s inner affairs despite compelling proof that Moscow has furnished an army, economic, and political guide to separatists preventing Ukrainian forces in a war that has killed more than 10,000 given that April 2014.

The Bellingcat research, carried out collectively with the impartial Russian website The Insider, enlisted two independent studies institutes to evaluate the intercepted communications, wherein Delfin is mentioned by way of the same first name and surname as Tkachyov, to recorded smartphone calls with Tkachyov made below the pretext of interviewing him for any other story.

Both institutes — one inside the United States and one in Lithuania — independently determined that it became “notably probable” that the same guy came to speak to me on each recording.

The Insider’s Roman Dobrokhotov says that the high probability proclaimed utilizing independent analysts will become close to actuality when evaluated in juxtaposition with different records produced via Bellingcat’s investigative group.

“Even if the audio examination itself does not verify a hundred percent identification,” he stated in an interview with VOA’s Russian Service, “other elements — that both recorded audio systems had the equal call, that both are high-rating officers — while considered alongside even much less sizable coincidences, then you get the result that mathematically almost gets rid of any blunders variation.”

Asked whether or not Delfin should have acted independently of the Russian navy chain of command in orchestrating move-border artillery moves, Dobrokhotov calls the concept almost unthinkable.

“To all people who believe Tkachyov acted on his own will, I advocate that we try to conduct ourselves independently throughout the border — no longer even with a full Buk missile device, but just one cartridge,” he said. “Try to hold one cartridge throughout the border somewhere in Domodedovo (International Airport), and notice what occurs to you. And right here, this Delfin can provide weapons. This can not happen without the Russian military’s right to political sanctions and agreement, which controls all border safety.

“In the Russian military, the whole thing is carried out using order from the very top,” he delivered. “A person must be a cog in the system, and this decision became certainly taken on the federal degree.”

It remains doubtful exactly what role Delfin might have played in the battle in Japanese Ukraine or the downing of MH17. According to interviews with former separatist commander Igor Girkin, recognized with the aid of the nom de guerre Strelkov, Delfin became an excessive-ranking Russian commander stationed in the Ukrainian metropolis of Krasnodon.

Girkin stated Delfin became at the rate of organizing disparate separatist militia devices in elements of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk areas.

The 2016 JIT findings said that the Buk anti-aircraft device that shot down MH17 crossed the border into Ukraine near Krasnodon. Girkin stated that he met with Delfin in Krasnodon in July 2014, when MH17 was shot down.

Regarding the Bellingcat/Insider file, Girkin confirmed a base was mounted in Krasnodon in early July 2014. There have been “senior, retired [Russian] General Staff, skilled generals” there. Girkin stated Delfin turned into “some popular” who’s no longer involved in the war in Ukraine.

Tkachyov advised Bellingcat/Insider that he was not in Ukraine in 2014 and had not left the Urals town of Yekaterinburg in 2012.

Tkachyov, 68, is an embellished veteran of both Russian campaigns in Chechnya. He changed into launched from a military career in 2010.

After his retirement, he served in 2011-12 as an army adviser to Syria’s government. After his return, he was assigned to the Central Military District and based in Yekaterinburg.

In May 2014, he attended the Victory Day parade in Yekaterinburg. He seemed again in public in August 2014 at an occasion celebrating Orenburg Cossacks.