MH17 and developments in Ukraine.

Crash site of MH17

A turning point in the Ukraine Crisis was the downing of Malaysian Airlines MH17, in which, an unarmed commercial jet flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down by Pro-Russian separatists. The Boeing 777 was carrying 283 passengers and 15 crewmembers, 31 miles from Russian Airspace when shot down in a rural area of Hrabove, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) had advised airlines to be wary of flying over Ukraine, while British Airways among others had ceased to fly over the entirety of Ukrainian Airspace. Whilst the ICAO had advised, The United States FAA issued restrictions on flights over Crimea which was at the heart of the conflict. In the week leading up to MH17, More than 900 flights over 37 separate carriers including industry leaders such as Lufthansa and Aeroflot crossed the Donetsk region without incident. Even though the commercial airlines crossed without incident, the same cannot be said for Ukrainian Air Force planes. On June 14th, over a month before the crash, a Ilyushin Il-76 carrying 49 passengers was shot down, with no survivors. One month later on July 14th, three days before MH17, A Ukrainian Air Force An-26 transport plane was shot down at altitude with 6 out of 8 airmen were lost. We must remember while as tragic as these other incidents are, the most troubling thing about MH17 was not that it just happened to fall out of the sky in a rural part of Ukraine, or that it was over a warzone, it’s that it was a civilian aircraft. Boeing designs planes to be sleek, fuel efficient, and maneuverable to a reasonable extent. Even had the crew known of the SA-11 Missile coming at them, there was probably little they could have done to protect the aircraft; the problem in fact, was that the crew had no idea at all. U.S. Military aircraft have Missile Approach Warning systems, as well as countermeasures and advanced flying techniques that can improve the likelihood of holding off an attack to the aircraft. (The only Boeing jet that could possess such countermeasures is Air Force One.) The Buk System that brought down MH17 is presumed to be a Russian built Almaz-Antey Buk-M1, Ground-based Air Defense System (GBADS). The Buk system is a surface to air missile system that is capable of hitting planes at medium to long ranges. By medium and long ranges, it is meant that the Buk has the capability to shoot down planes that are as high as 79,000ft in the air. MH17 was flying at 33,000ft, Which was 1000ft over the barred height restriction imposed by Ukrainian Authorities, but still within range of a GBADS. Therefore, it is very likely that the Buk system was used to bring down flight MH17.

The political implications of the MH17 Disaster are huge, mainly due in part because the entirety of the situation was a mistake. MH17 supposedly was not the intended target. The Pro Russian Rebels were targeting Ukranian Military aircraft, and mistakenly shot down a civilian commercial jet. Igor Strelkov of the Ukrainian separatist movement claimed on Russian social media site Vkontakte, that the separatist forces had shot down another Ukrainian Military Antonov AN-26, on the same day as MH17. Since, there was no AN-26 shot down on July 17th, 2014. We can only assume that they had mistaken the Boeing 777 as an AN-26. From an aviation standpoint, that sounds like a hilarious assumption. The AN-26 and a Boeing 777 are completely different aircraft. An Antonov AN-26 has a wingspan half that of a 777, and a length of ⅓ of a 777. That being said, the pro-separatists are untrained militants in a field with missiles, so they aren’t exactly up to par on aircraft identification. That being said, they are in fact trained to a point, using highly specialized equipment. The downing of MH17 changes the entire dynamic of the situation. The separatists brought down an unarmed civilian aircraft, with a highly specialized weapons system, which would lead some to think..”Where did they get it? And then learn how to use it!?” Well we can all be certain it wasn’t from a BassPro Shop mail order catalogue or a “How to” DVD. Although difficult to prove, considering it was a Soviet rocket launcher, it is not too much of a jump to assume the Russian army are training the fighters/separatists, although that is impossible to prove.

Along the lines of indiscriminate weaponary, another weapon deployed by both sides in the Ukrainian conflict is the GRAD Missile system. The GRAD system is a multiple rocket launcher system typically mounted on a truck. It can fire up to 40 unguided missiles within the span of 10-20 seconds. The issue here is that these missiles are unguided. Unguided missiles that are being used in a civil war, where the battlegrounds occur in cities that consist large amount of civilians. Unguided missile systems can be devastating in this sort of conflict, who knows where a missile could land. Missiles have gone astray and landed on apartment blocks and houses, killing innocent civilians indiscriminately. It needs to be taken into account that both sides of this conflict are using this weapon. Therefore, when a missile barrage comes down and accidentally hits an apartment block, Both sides then blame the other, and civilians are left to ponder who did what. A GRAD Missile system is similar to what was used in the MH17 incident. GRAD missile systems are to an extent, complex to use, not very common, and not very easy to obtain. Keep in mind the Pro-Russian separatists are separatists, many of them have no military training, and supposedly aren’t supported by a country. Therefore it brings into question, who supplies these defense systems, as well as the missiles themselves.

The insignia of the AZOV Battalion
a Pro-Ukrainian Militia, the insignia
has been criticized due to the Nazi
iconography used in it.

Weapons that indiscriminately destroy a plane or that flatten apartment blocks are very important to talk about because it brings up the question of legitimate and illegitimate violence. These weapons are developed and deployed by nations which maintain that reputation of legitimate violence. They make the weapons and they make the rules on how they can use them. But then a line is crossed, civilians are brought into the fray and they become victims of war as seen with both the Buk surface-to-air missile system and the GRAD missile system.

Indiscriminate bombings and missile attacks put civilians in a weird position. Especially in the conflict in Ukraine, what side do they chose? On one side they have Ukraine which many citizens have lived in with no problem. But on the other side Russia is calling and many citizens recall the great Soviet Union. In a way a number of civilians feel connected to both. Same language, same ethnicity, and for the most part similar ideology and religion. It’s the latter that’s being put into question, who do they plead their allegiance to.

The Donetsk Peoples Republic Flag,
the flag has the Double Headed Eagles
that are also found on the Russian flag

Ukrainian and Russian Nationalism are on completely different sides of the spectrum. Eastern Ukraine held its own referendum in May of 2014 which claimed the Donetsk region wanted to break from Ukraine entirely, whilst Western Ukraine which is closer to Europe, is trying to distance themselves from their past relationship with Russia and their old Soviet ties, and is looking to join the EU. The results have reportedly been skewed, but apparently 90% of the Ukrainians in the Donetsk region want to join Russia instead of the EU. This is unsurprising given the proximity of the Donetsk and the location of the MH17 crash site, which is only 31 Miles from the Russian border, in a rural area in which has changed little since the days of Gorbachev and Khrushchev. The strategy that Russia is using is in fact putting pressure on Kiev. Less than a month ago, Kiev was forced to hold off on a trade deal in which the Kremlin strongly opposed, regardless of the sanctions that the United States or the European Union had put in place to allow Kiev to move forward with the agreement.

The developments in the past month have been eye opening. The ceasefire has given light to an idea of diplomacy rather than rocket launchers, as our group looks forward to the developments that will happen in the upcoming weeks.

References

2014-07-14 Ukraine Air Force Antonov An-26 shot down in eastern Ukraine » JACDEC. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.jacdec.de/2014/07/14/2014-07-14-ukraine-air-force-antonov-an-26-shot-down-in-eastern-ukraine/

Army Guide - BM-21 9K51 GRAD, Multiple rocket launcher. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.army-guide.com/eng/product1373.html

BBC News - MH17 crash: Airlines divert flights from eastern Ukraine. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28356745

Buk Missile System Lethal, But Undiscriminating | Defense content from Aviation Week. (2014, July 21). Retrieved from http://aviationweek.com/defense/buk-missile-system-lethal-undiscriminating

Gigova, Radina, Lena Kashkarova, and Journalist Lena Kashkarova Contributed to This Report from Donetsk. "Ukraine's Donetsk Region Asking to Join Russia, Separatist Leader Says." CNN. Cable News Network, 12 May 2014. Web. 05 Oct. 2014. <http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/12/world/europe/ukraine-crisis/>.

DW.de. (2014, July 18). Opinion: Consequences of MH17 for Ukraine are huge | World | DW.DE | 18.07.2014. Retrieved from http://www.dw.de/opinion-consequences-of-mh17-for-ukraine-are-huge/a-17794958

The Guardian. (2014, July 17). Downed Malaysia Airlines plane: how did it go wrong for flight MH17? | World news | The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/17/malaysia-airlines-mh17-flying-just-above-restricted-airspace

Human Rights Watch. (2014, July 24). Ukraine: Unguided Rockets Killing Civilians | Human Rights Watch. Retrieved from http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/07/24/ukraine-unguided-rockets-killing-civilians

Malaysia Airlines MH17: Lufthansa überflog Ost-Ukraine 56 Mal - SPIEGEL ONLINE. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/malaysia-airlines-mh17-lufthansa-ueberflog-ost-ukraine-56-mal-a-981813.html