Ukraine releases recording of ‘inhuman crime’

KIEV — Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, has released what it said was an intercepted telephone conversation in which a pro-Russia rebel leader admitted to shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17.

The recording, which the SBU released with a transcript on YouTube, was of a conversation purportedly between Igor Bezler, the militia leader in the eastern town of Gorlovka, and his superior, Colonel Vasili Geranin from Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency.

Speaking in Russian, the voice identified as Bezler’s informs Geranin that a group of fighters had shot down an aircraft and a team had been sent to inspect the wreckage and search for survivors.

Later, two other men — using the noms de guerre “Major” and “Grek” — are heard discussing the discovery that a “100 per cent civilian” aircraft was shot down. “I’m only where the first bodies fell,” Major tells Grek. “F***, the debris fell right in people’s gardens. There are civilian things — medicine, towels, toilet paper.”

“Are there any documents?” asks Grek. “Yes,” says Major, “of one Indonesian student.”

While the conversation sounds plausible, it is impossible to verify.

Russian Internet sources show Bezler was born in 1965 in Crimea, and studied in Russia. He served in the Russian military but moved back to Ukraine in 2003, where he began to work as the head of security for a factory in Gorlovka. Biographies also note that he had worked in a company that performed burial services but was fired in 2012.

Several assassinations are believed to have happened under Bezler’s watch soon after his forces took Gorlovka. He took responsibility for killing a number of Ukrainian militiamen in the town of Volnovakha some weeks ago and has been wanted by the Ukrainian authorities since April.

In a recent interview with the Russian news agency RIA Novosti, Bezler said he was a Russian passport holder but had a residency permit in Ukraine. He said he sang the national anthem of the Soviet Union every morning, and usually went to bed around 10.30pm.

Ukraine’s SBU chief Valentyn Nalivaychenko has called the chilling testimony on the phone recordings an “inhuman crime.”

“We will do everything for the Russian military who carried out this crime to be punished,” Mr Nalivaychenko told journalists, who were shown video and audio transcripts of the recordings. “The terrorists will not go on dancing on corpses.”

American officials, who said a surface-to-air missile shot down MH17 on Thursday, said they suspected the missile was either an SA-11 or SA-20, both Russian made.

All of the three forces in or near the conflict area — the pro-Russian separatists, the Ukrainian military and the Russian military — could possess SA-11s, a legacy weapon from the Soviet Union circulating through this war.

Known in Russian as a “Buk” and among NATO nations as a “Gadfly,” the SA-11 fires roughly 18-foot-long missiles that can reach much higher than the reported altitude — 33,000 ft — of the Malaysian passenger jet. Each missile carries a large high-explosive warhead, against which a thin-skinned Boeing 777 would have no defence.

Yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Ukraine bore responsibility for the downing of MH17, adding that it would not have happened if Kiev had not resumed a military campaign against separatists.

“This tragedy would not have happened, if there had been peace on that land, or in any case if military operations in south-eastern Ukraine had not been renewed,” he said.

“And without doubt the government of the territory on which it happened bears responsibility for this frightening tragedy,” he said. The Russian leader added that he had urged the Russian authorities to do everything possible to help with the investigation into the incident.

“We will do everything that we can so that an objective picture of what happened can be achieved,” Mr Putin said. “This is a completely unacceptable thing.” AGENCIES