This then brings us to the second low loader hauling a BUK M1, and the now quite famous video grab from the YouTube clip (pictured above) supplied by the Ukrainian authorities, the vehicle said to be heading for the Russian border (even though the shot is in daylight). But the location of the vehicle has now been now identified as in the separatist-held town of Luhansk (see picture below).


However, the location is in a residential part of the town (pictured above and located on the map below - click to enlarge). It is inside the ring road and not on any route directly leading to the Russian border. Furthermore, the nearest border crossing suitable for a heavy low loader (marked on map below) is over 30 miles away. 

Without a verifiable time of filming, and more detail, it is actually not possible to tell the origin of the launcher, whether it is coming from or going to the border, or indeed whether it had been anywhere near the border.  It may even be on its way to the launch site. 

In other words, from an evidential point of view, the video clip tells us nothing about the origin of the BUK launcher, or its destination after the shooting down of MK17. In fact, it raises the question of why, if the launcher was being transported from the firing site in Snizhne to the Russian border, it was then seen in the suburbs of Luhansk, off the main route to the border?

But what now emerges is a fourth point. All sides have either been falsifying the evidence, misrepresenting it, or generally muddying the waters. As has been observed, there is an information war going on. Yet, when it comes to pointing fingers, we see exactly the same sort of selectively from the Western media as we are getting from the likes of RT. They are all at it. 

Hot off the press from the Economist, for instance, we have a piece entitled, "A web of lies", telling us that "Vladimir Putin's epic deceits have grave consequences for his people and the outside world". Mr Putin has blamed the tragedy of MH17 on Ukraine, the Economist complains, and not without justification does it dismiss his "lies".

Says the magazine, "A high-court's worth of circumstantial evidence points to the conclusion that pro-Russian separatists fired a surface-to-air missile out of their territory at what they probably thought was a Ukrainian military aircraft", yet we are told Putin was the author of the destruction of MH17:

Russia's president is implicated in their crime twice over. First, it looks as if the missile was supplied by Russia, its crew was trained by Russia, and after the strike the launcher was spirited back to Russia. Second, Mr Putin is implicated in a broader sense because this is his war. The linchpins of the self-styled Donetsk People's Republic are not Ukrainian separatists but Russian citizens who are, or were, members of the intelligence services. Their former colleague, Mr Putin, has paid for the war and armed them with tanks, personnel carriers, artillery - and batteries of surface-to-air missiles. The separatists pulled the trigger, but Mr Putin pulled the strings.

In terms of evidence, though, the magazine relies on its own news story, where we see written:

Since late June small convoys of Russian heavy weapons had been flowing into the Luhansk region of Ukraine from a deployment and training site set up near Rostov by the separatists' Russian military helpers, according to Western intelligence sources. On July 13th, at about the same time that Mr Putin was sitting down to watch the World Cup final with Angela Merkel ... American sources say that a much bigger convoy of around 150 vehicles made the journey. It is said to have included tanks, artillery, Grad rocket launchers, armoured personnel carriers and Buk missile systems. Russia flatly denies having sent any such missiles.

But then comes the priceless statement, where it is conceded: "Whether it was a missile delivered by that convoy that brought down MH17 is unknown" - more priceless when you appreciate that there is no evidence that there were BUK launchers in the convoy, much less that they had been supplied by the Russian government. 

So, the mighty Economist doesn't have any evidence that the BUK launcher was delivered by the Russians, and the Russians deny supplying it. It thus has to pay lip service to "reports in late June that the rebels had captured such missiles from the Ukrainians".

Here then lies the key sleight of hand. The Russians are, of course, "liars" so their denials can be discounted. But, when it comes to the separatists capturing a launcher from the Ukrainian Army, we get: "… the Ukrainians deny this and it may well have been deliberate Russian misinformation". Therefore, because the Ukrainians deny it, it is discounted by the Economist.  

Never mind that the Ukrainians too have been indulging in their own form of "misinformation", up to and including the fabrication of evidence. "Successful attacks on aircraft started straight after the convoy's arrival" so, despite the separatists having had a launcher since 28 June, and possibly having got it repaired (even having had it delivered by the self-same convoy), the Ukrainian narrative prevails.

Skewed, distorted, one-side, partisan, incomplete and flawed – the Economist typifies Western media coverage and captures absolutely the mindset of the Western intelligence analysts. Counterpuch has it as "Russia-bashing, hatred, hysteria and humbug", while Paul Craig Roberts states the obvious, that there was no evidence that Russia "did it", and Tony Cartalucci notes:

The abject failure of the United States to once again put forth credible evidence amid a firestorm of propaganda and rush to judgement - and subsequent action - echoes the attempted rush to war after NATO-member Turkey and Saudi Arabia assisted terrorists from the Syrian Al Qaeda franchise, Al Nusra, in carrying out a false-flag sarin gas attack in Damascus in August 2013. It also echoes the fallacious, fabricated evidence peddled before the United Nations regarding Iraqi "weapons of mass destruction" that in fact did not exist - but led to the invasion and nearly decade-long occupation of Iraq and over a million dead.

Anyone who now accepts that anything the legacy media has to say on such weighty matters is genuine, or even useful without very careful checking, or who again accepts an official "intelligence" assessment as unbiased, has only themselves to blame. The value in such reports is mainly in identifying the narrative. But if you want to know what is happening, you are going to have to go elsewhere.

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