The report of the Dutch-led investigation team on the shoot down of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine offered a momentary glimpse into the true nature of the proverbial riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Instead of denying any Russian involvement in the death of 298 people in July 2014, a number of official spokespersons, journalists, and bloggers known for their close ties to the Kremlin reacted nervously and with contradictory responses.
Dismissing the report as based on “speculation, unqualified and unprofessional information,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov hinted vaguely that new data on the crash had emerged. A representative of Almaz-Antey, the company that produces the Buk missile (the model that destroyed the Malaysian Boeing), did not rule out an accidental launch caused by poor maintenance and a possible violation of procedures by the missile launch crew. A permanent fixture in the presidential press corps, Andrei Kolesnikov, indicated that Russian President Vladimir Putin could have been misled by his advisers, speculating that if Putin finds out that pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas deliberately shot down a civilian airliner, he will turn his back on them. And the chief editor of the influential Echo Moskvy radio station, Alexei Venediktov, said something similar, though he presumed that Putin would thoroughly investigate Russian military involvement in this tragedy.
