{"id":67555,"date":"2017-02-17T16:56:13","date_gmt":"2017-02-17T16:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uacrisis.org\/?p=52718"},"modified":"2017-02-17T16:56:13","modified_gmt":"2017-02-17T14:56:13","slug":"52718-new-mh17-reports-bellingcat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/52718-new-mh17-reports-bellingcat","title":{"rendered":"New MH17 Reports from Bellingcat"},"content":{"rendered":"

The original article was collaboratively researched and written by the Bellingcat<\/a>\u00a0MH17 Investigation Team. UCMC publishes a short version.<\/em><\/p>\n

This article will show, the man interviewed who reportedly fought in Slavyansk and is from Moscow is almost certainly not the same \u201cKhmuryi\u201d from the intercepted telephone conversation.<\/em><\/p>\n

On 18 July 2014, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) published several tapped telephone conversations<\/a> in relation to the July 17 downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 (MH17). Most of these conversations, recorded on the day of the downing, are between an officer identified\u00a0as \u2018Khmuryi\u2019 (\u2019Gloomy\u2019 or \u2018Grumpy\u2019) and other separatist officers or soldiers of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People\u2019s Republic. The SBU identified \u2018Khmuryi\u2019\u00a0as \u2018Sergey Nikolaevich Petrovsky\u2019, a Russian GRU officer, but it took some time before this was covered in-depth by either Western or Russian-language media.<\/p>\n

On 1 April 2015, the Dutch news organizations NRC<\/a>, NOS<\/a> and De Telegraaf<\/a> wrote on Khmuryi after the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) published a video<\/a> that included the tapped phone conversations, but audible censoring of the identities of the parties in the call. However, on 18 September 2014, Russian-language media site PolitRussia published an article<\/a> and a video<\/a> about \u2018Khmuryi\u2019, a DNR officer named Sergey Petrovsky, presenting a photograph and a video interview. This publication is based on a video<\/a> from 27 June 2014 showing an interview with a member\u00a0of the so-called Donbas People\u2019s Militia with the call sign \u2018Khmuryi\u2019. However, that video does not provide the full name of the commander. As this article will show, the man interviewed who reportedly fought in Slavyansk and is from Moscow is almost certainly not the same \u201cKhmuryi\u201d from the intercepted telephone conversation. Another video<\/a>, titled \u2018Sergey Nikolaevich Petrovsky (call sign Khmuryi, Bad soldier)\u2019 and uploaded 2 October 2014, shows a video message of a masked man, who according to the video title is Sergey Petrovsky. However, the video was previously uploaded on 12 June 2014<\/a>,\u00a0entitled \u2018Spetsnaz of Strelkov,\u2019 and this man seems to be a different person than the bearded man in the 27 June 2014 video, as his voice differs.<\/p>\n

On 30 November 2014, an interview<\/a> with General Sergey Nikolaevich Petrovsky was published on the Russian news site Politikus, making clear that he was then the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the Donetsk People\u2019s Republic and that his military career started in the Soviet army in 1984, when he participated in the war in Afghanistan. In the 90s, he took part in wars in North Ossetia and Chechnya, where he met Igor \u2018Strelkov\u2019 Girkin, who was the Minister of Defence of the Donetsk People\u2019s Republic in 2014. In another interview<\/a>, published 25 December 2014 on ultranationalist Russian news site Zavtra, he describes himself as Major General Sergey Petrovsky, born in 1962 in the Donetsk region. It is unclear if he achieved the rank of major general in the Russian Federation or the self-proclaimed separatist republic. He also described having over 30 years of service in the Soviet and Russian armies.\u00a0 An earlier interview<\/a> with \u2018Khmuryi\u2019, then a colonel, was published in 2003 on the Russian news site Izvestia, as mentioned in a 2016 publication on a blog named Globalized<\/a>.\u00a0 This blog, but also another blog on 28 November 2014<\/a>, describes that a person who calls himself \u2018Plokhoy Soldat\u2019 (\u2018Bad Soldier\u2019), with an avatar saying \u2018Khmuryi\u2019, frequently posted on a forum<\/a> of the website Antikvariat<\/a>, a website about history, military relics, and other topics, and where Igor \u2018Strelkov\u2019 Girkin also regularly posted messages<\/a> about the war in Ukraine. In this forum, he wrote on 19 July 2014<\/a> that he is Colonel Sergey Nikolaevich Petrovsky, Deputy Minister of Defence of the Donetsk People\u2019s Republic for guards reconnaissance.<\/p>\n

It is because of Igor Girkin\u2019s e-mail account<\/a> that was hacked in May 2014 that the true identity of Sergey Petrovsky, which is not his real name, came to light. Several e-mails from Girkin\u2019s e-mail account were published<\/a>, among them an e-mail sent on 28 April 2014 from Sergey Dubinsky with e-mail address karahan1962@mail.ru, writing \u201cIgor, this is Zubr [European bison \/ auroch], hi, do you still remember me??\u201d This name and e-mail address lead to a social media profile<\/a> that makes clear that Dubinsky was born on 9 August 1962 and lived in Donetsk, Ukraine. \u00a0It\u2019s noteworthy to mention that this year of birth (1962) differs from SBU\u2019s claim he was born in 1964. The e-mail address also leads to a forum<\/a> on a website about the 181st Motorized Infantry Regiment, that belonged to the 108th Motorized Infantry Division<\/a>, which was involved in the Afghan war from 1979 to 1989. In the forum, after a list of names of soldiers and the years they served, a guest introduces himself on 18 July 2010<\/a> as \u2018Karakhan\u2019 and Sergey Dubinsky, serving from 1985 to 1987, currently living in Donetsk, Ukraine. In 2011 he registered himself as user \u2018Karakhan<\/a>\u2019, Sergey Dubinsky, born on 9 August 1962, and uploaded a photograph<\/a> of himself in a military uniform, showing the rank of Colonel. One of his fellow veterans soon after uploaded several photographs<\/a> of him as well, and in 2016 another fellow veteran uploaded a larger version of the photograph<\/a> of Sergey Dubinsky in uniform and described him as \u2018Petrovsky, Dvorkovskiy, Khmuryi, Zubr [European bison, or auroch],\u00a0Bison and our Karakhan\u2019 and as \u2018Khmuryi in DNR (Donetsk People\u2019s Republic)\u2019 in now-deleted posts on the forum. A video<\/a> in the forum and a YouTube video<\/a> show the same photograph of Sergey Dubinsky in a military uniform.<\/p>\n

Bellingcat\u2019s conclusion is that the man whose telephone was tapped by the Ukrainian Security Service on 17 July 2014, assuming the SBU correctly identified his voice and\/or knew that the intercepted telephone number belonged to him and was thus\u00a0involved in the transport of the Buk missile launcher that downed MH17 on the same date, is named Sergey Nikolaevich Dubinsky, nicknamed \u2018Khmuryi\u2019. Dubinsky is a Russian war veteran and was a colonel in July 2014, fought in the Soviet-Afghan war and later in Chechnya, and later served in the 22nd Spetsnaz Brigade, a unit connected to the \u2018GRU\u2019, the Main Intelligence Directorate. This man does not appear to be the same person as the bearded man, who likely coincidentally also used the call sign \u2018Khmuryi\u2019 in a June 2014 interview; Dubinsky wrote in the Antikvariat forum on 2 July 2014<\/a> that he had been confused with someone else \u201cfrom Slavyansk.\u201d However, Dubinsky may be the same person as the masked man in an October 2014 video titled \u2018Sergey Nikolaevich Petrovsky (call sign Khmuryi, Bad Soldier)\u2019, previously uploaded on 12 June 2014 as \u2018Spetsnaz of Strelkov\u2019. Dubinsky wrote in the same post of 2 July 2014<\/a> on the Antikvariat forum that he is not a man seen in the media, with one exception, just as he read in the text of the 12 June 2014 video.<\/p>\n

Sergey Dubinsky was granted the higher rank of major general in the Donetsk People\u2019s Republic in, apparently<\/a>, August 2014, shortly after the downing of MH17, and later relocated to the Russian Federation after being expelled from Donetsk for alleged financial crimes. Nowadays Dubinsky lives a fairly luxurious life for Russian standards, in a quiet village, spending time with his family and enjoying rides in an expensive recreational vehicle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The original article was collaboratively researched and written by the Bellingcat\u00a0MH17 Investigation Team. UCMC publishes a short version. This article will show, the man interviewed who reportedly fought in Slavyansk and is from Moscow is almost certainly not the same \u201cKhmuryi\u201d from the intercepted telephone conversation. On 18 July 2014, the Security Service of Ukraine […] More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":67556,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[705,748],"tags":[],"section":[743],"form":[],"yoast_head":"\nNew MH17 Reports from Bellingcat | UACRISIS.ORG<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The original article was collaboratively researched and written by the Bellingcat\u00a0MH17 Investigation Team. UCMC publishes a short version. 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