Global manhunt for four key suspects

An international manhunt is underway after arrest warrants were issued for four key suspects over the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.

The names of the three Russians and one Ukrainian were announced during a press conference by investigators, including Australian police, in the Netherlands overnight.

The Russians are Igor Girkin, a former colonel with the country’s Federal Security Bureau (FSB); Sergey Dubinskiy, a former officer with Russia’s military intelligence agency (GRU); and Oleg Pulatov, a former soldier with the GRU’s special forces spetsnaz unit.

All four were officials in the pro-Russian Donetsk People’s Republic, which is fighting for independence from Ukraine.

The fourth suspect is Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko, a former commander of a combat unit in the city of Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine.
 

They will be charged with causing the MH17 crash, leading to the deaths of all 298 people on board, and with murdering the crew and passengers.

Investigators alleged the four were responsible for transporting the Russian Buk Telar missile that brought down the passenger plane as it flew over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014.

The Joint Investigation Team said the missile was launched from Ukraine’s separatist-held territory, and they plan to name further suspects who fired the missile or were part of the chain of command.

Girkin, now 48, was minister of defence in the self-titled Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) at the time.
 

As the highest military officer of the Moscow-backed separatist army, he maintained contact with the Russian Federation.

The former military chief denied that Ukrainian separatists shot down the plane on Wednesday. He told The Associated Press by phone that “the insurgents did not shoot it down” and told Russian news agency Interfax,“Neither I nor any other separatist is to blame”.
 

Girkin, also known as Strelkov (or “Shooter”), said he would not testify in the Dutch-led legal proceedings against him at The Hague on 9 March next year. “The militia does not have anything to do with this,” said the former intelligence agent, who is thought to live in Moscow. “Neither I nor any other separatist is to blame.
 

“Rebels did not shoot down the Boeing.”

In 2014, Girkin ruled the then rebel stronghold of Slavyansk with an iron fist, with executions for petty theft reportedly carried out under his rule. But he was squeezed out of the separatist leadership later that year in mysterious circumstances and returned to Russia, where he lost all influence and reportedly had financial difficulties.

Dubinskiy, now 56, was Girkin’s deputy in the Russia-backed region in 2014 and head of the DNR’s intelligence service. They reportedly met while fighting in the First Chechen War in the mid-1990s.

The Bellingcat website reported that the Afghanistan veteran “requested the delivery of a battle-ready BUK missile launcher” — the type of missile said to have downed the plane — and was “involved in the removal of the BUK back to Russia after the downing of MH17.” He reportedly lives in Rostov-on-Don, his native city in southern Russia near the border with Ukraine.
 

Pulatov, 52, was Dubinskiy’s deputy and military officer of the Russian Spetznaz-GRU, the special units of the Russian military intelligence service. Nicknamed “Gyurza” after a viper snake, Pulatov helped ensure the safety of the area where the MH17 debris fell.

Kharchenko, 47, was commander of a combat unit in the Donetsk region and received his orders directly from Dubinskiy. According to Ukrainian media, Kharchenko is wanted by Kiev for the siege of government buildings and his role in helping the rebels. In an interview published in 2015 by a separatist news agency, he called authorities in Kiev a “fascist regime” that is built on a “Nazi” ideology.

They were at the centre of an armed conflict in the area between pro-Russian fighters and the Ukrainian armed forces.

Investigators said the soldiers “formed a chain linking DNR with the Russian Federation” and helping rebels bring military weapons from Russia into Ukraine, including the anti-aircraft missile launcher. It is believed the shooting of MH17 was a devastating mistake.

The victims on board the Boeing 777 headed from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur include 38 Australians and 80 children. There were also one New Zealander, 193 Dutch, 43 Malaysians, 12 Indonesians and 10 British passengers aboard MH17. The other passengers were from Germany, Belgium, the Philippines and Canada.
 

Chief Constable Paulson said it was clear there was deeper involvement by the Russian state allowing the Buk to be transferred over the border and it may have been sent along with its Russian crew.

“Even though they have not pushed the button themselves ... they are just as punishable,” said Netherlands Chief Constable Wilbert Paulisson.

He said investigators want to know who decided to send the Buk into the Ukraine, who chose the crew and what their mission was once it crossed the border.

The investigation team, made up of detectives and prosecutors from the Netherlands, Malaysia, Australia, Belgium and Ukraine, last year said that it was convinced that the Buk missile system used to shoot down flight MH17 came from the Russian army’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile brigade, based in the Russian city of Kursk.

A key suspect in the investigation who cannot be named is Lieutenant X, who was in charge of the battalion the BUK was part of when it was fired at MH17.

That man is now a serving captain in the Russian military.

Russia has always denied responsibility for shooting down the flight and claimed last year that the Buk missile came from Ukrainian army arsenals.