MOSCOW, March 7. /TASS/. Russia's defense ministry called distorting Bellingcat's "journalist investigation" claiming Russia's involvement into the crash of Malaysia's Boeing above Ukraine.
The Russian defense ministry has never commented and is not interested in commenting various guesses published on the net, the authority said. However, due to many inquiries the ministry receives regarding publications of the so-called journalistic investigation conducted by Bellingcat claiming Russia’s involvement in downing of the Malaysian Boeing, the ministry would like to make a statement as follows.
"Bellingcat's so-called journalist investigation distorts the objective facts," the ministry's press service said. "The presented information is of deliberately anti-Russian aiming and is based on false data. Moreover, it uses unproved calculations, aimed at exclusively informative impact on the public."
"The main purpose of the data fixed by Bellingcat is to try proving the Russian military were present in the estimated area of the launch of missile, which hit Malaysia's plane on July 17, 2014 above Ukraine," the ministry said. "As of today, nobody still has presented realistic proofs the Russian Armed Forces were in Ukraine."
Authors of the report use for their conclusions publications in social networks, various faked posts on the Internet, as well as their own doubtful information, which under no conditions could be considered realistic proofs of Russia’s involvement in the conflict in Ukraine, the Russian military authority said.
Bellingcat’s recent report, like by the way all the previous ones, is also based on pseudo hypotheses, the ministry said. As a proof the Russian military were in Ukraine, they use a picture of alleged military, which was made allegedly in the area of the Buk launch on July 20, 2014, that is already after the crash of Malaysia’s Boeing. This is the exclusive material Bellingcat is using to make the conclusion about presence of the Russian military in the alleged area of the launch.
However, the person on the picture, despite the groundless claims of Bellingcat, has nothing to do with the Russian Armed Forces - he has never been a Russian military. This can be checked easily, as the search on the Internet would require only very little time, the defense ministry said.
Besides, the validity of the pictures Bellingcat has been distributing, was commented quite clearly by authors of the program to analyze pictures, who said Bellingcat’s work is an example of how not to analyze or process images.
The defense ministry continued saying, respected western media also several times disclaimed by their investigations the conclusions offered by Bellingcat, pointing to a lack of proofs or competence.
"What are we talking about here if in their conclusion the pseudo experts stated presently they do not have an opportunity to present objective proofs in their so-called "research"?"
"At the same time, merely weird is the fact the doubtful materials of the kind are considered by the Joint Investigation Team - the union, which officially conducts the investigation claiming to be objective and professional," the Russian ministry said. "Simultaneously, that team rejected without considering the proofs offered by Rosaviatsiya by simply saying all that was ‘uninteresting’."
"’Uninteresting’ it must have been because that data would not fit the pre-decided model of the tragedy," the ministry said. "We are confident, all data - referring to the tragedy with Boeing - without exceptions should undergo thorough studies and analysis.".