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| Child laying wreath at Dutch Embassy, Kiev, Ukraine |
Putinism conjured up a phony imperial war against Ukraine by using lies and more lies, but the blood of its victims is quite real. On July 17, 2014, Malaysian Air flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down over eastern Ukraine by Russian terrorists armed with an advanced anti-air missile system. A total of 298 human beings perished. Eighty were children.
It is the single worst air disaster since 9-11.
How do we know it was Russian terrorists? Multiple sources from multiple governments and intelligence analysts confirm that the missile was not fired from an airplane (neither Ukraine nor Russia had military aircraft in the vicinity during the shoot-down), while satellite data indicated that an advanced SAM missile system locked onto the plane and shot it down. Ukraine's armed forces have no such systems deployed, because the terrorists have no air force, ergo the missile could only have been Russian.
We have copious amounts of photographic and video evidence of the Russian terrorists openly driving SA-11 launchers with missiles on Ukrainian roads. Citizen journalists quickly collated the evidence, all of which points to Russian culpability.
Any lingering doubts about Putinism's responsibility for the crime were erased when the Russian terrorists (they are Russians with Russian passports, commanded by Russian officers) openly admitted to receiving an advanced anti-missile system from Russia, and then openly admitted using it (Ukraine's state security service tapped the phones of the terrorists, and provided translations). We really could not make this up if we tried - click here and here.
The final toll stands at 193 Dutch citizens (one with dual Dutch-US citizenship), 43 Malaysians, 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians, 10 Britons (one with dual UK-South African citizenship), 4 Belgians, 4 Germans, 3 Filipinos, 1 Canadian and 1 New Zealander. Four additional victims have yet to be identified. To give you a sense of the scale of the disaster, the number of Dutch victims relative to their population of 16.8 million is the demographic equivalent of 3,600 victims vis-a-vis the US population of 314 million. In short, the Netherlands just had its very own 9-11.
The insanity of Putinism's demented war on Ukraine has gone on long enough. The world community must act -- not with anger, but with democratic resolve.
Russia must immediately cease its imperialist war of colonial annexation on Ukraine, and withdraw its troops and munitions from Donetsk and Luzhansk. (Crimea is a separate issue, and can only be resolved through peaceful negotiations, and by the free and open democratic choice of the people of Crimea -- and no, that bogus March referendum held at gunpoint was not a free choice).
For its part, Ukraine's government has indicated that it will respect the full cultural, political and social rights of its ethnic Russian minority, and is in the process of bringing local accountability and administrative decentralization to its regions.
Russia has every right to hold Ukraine accountable to those promises, through peaceful dialogue with Ukraine's legitimate and democratic government. But Putinism has absolutely no right to wage open war on a neighboring country which did not threaten Russia, invade Russia, or harm Russia's security in any way.
The sunflower-laden fields of Ukraine have seen enough bloodshed for several lifetimes over. Let the catastrophe of MH-17 be the beginning of the end of this madness.
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| This note at the Dutch Embassy in Moscow represents the real Russia. Some day, Putinism's despicable petro-plutocracy will fall and a free, democratic Russia will rise. |
