Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) has arrested a man who was allegedly coordinating militants in the eastern Donbas region on behalf of Russia since the start of the war in 2014.
The man, identified as Andriy Mykolayovych K., was arrested on July 7 in Kyiv. The SBU published audio recordings that appear to demonstrate that Andriy K. was a middleman between Vladislav Surkov, then assistant to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Sergei Dubinsky, head of the militant’s so-called intelligence service.
Dubinsky and Leonid Kharchenko, who also allegedly took orders from Andriy K. over the phone, are official suspects in the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 over the Donbas on July 17, 2014. The plane was shot down by a Buk missile system brought in from Russia.
In total, 298 passengers and crew members, mostly Dutch citizens, were killed in the downing.
According to audio recordings published by the SBU the day after the plane was shot down, Dubinsky had direct knowledge of the Buk being transported from Russia onto militant-controlled territory with a crew. After MH17 was shot down, Dubinsky led the effort to transport the missile system back into Russia to cover up Russia’s involvement.
Andriy K. has the potential to become an important suspect in the MH17 court case, which is currently ongoing in Hague, Netherlands. Andriy K. remains in Ukrainian custody and will soon be charged with terrorism.
MH17 case
The audio recordings published by the SBU after Andriy K. was arrested show that he had direct authority over Dubinsky and Kharchenko. Andriy K. was informed about their moves and gave them orders.
The audio recordings are given without date stamps, but all the events mentioned in the conversations between militants took place in 2014.
In 2019, Bellingcat, an independent, open-source investigative project, named Dubinsky a potential key suspect in the downing of MH17. He was later confirmed as a suspect by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), headed by the Public Prosecution Service of the Netherlands.
“Several intercepted phone calls indicate that it was Dubinsky who requested the delivery of a battle-ready Buk missile launcher and that he personally coordinated the transport of the arriving Buk missile launcher to the launch site on 17 July,” writes Bellingcat.
Bellingcat also linked Dubinsky and his “intelligence” agency to the Russian State Intelligence Office (GRU).
“There is little doubt that the GRU and the (militant “intelligence” agency) closely coordinated at least some of their efforts in the summer of 2014,” Bellingcat writes.
In the first audio, Andriy K. calls Dubinsky and says he’ll organize a meeting between Dubinsky and Surkov. The two also discuss “difficulties” that Andriy K. is planning to resolve with his superiors.
Later, in a phone conversation with Kharchenko, Andriy K. says that it should be the former who will meet Russian officials, because the Russians don’t want contact with Dubinsky for “their own reasons.”
In 2014, Karchenko led one of the militant battalions and was responsible for securing the location were the Buk missile launcher was stationed. He was also a high-ranked official in the militant’s “intelligence” agency directly subordinate to Dubinsky.
Eventually a meeting between Dubinsky and General Alexey Sedov, head of the counterterrorism department at the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), was organized. According to the audio recordings, Sedov presented Dubinsky with some sort of official documents signed by FSB Chief Aleksandr Bortnikov.
“(Bortnikov) greenlights my entry,” says Dubinsky.
“If it’s this kind of format, they’ll call you up and talk to you (regularly),” says Andriy K. He mentions that the meetings will take place in the FSB headquarters in Moscow or the building across the street, which is the headquarters of Russia’s border guard service, a branch of the FSB.
On May 14, BBC Russia reported that Kharchenko was detained in Russian-occupied Donetsk on March 11, two days after the MH17 case began in the Hague.
According to the BBC, Kharchenko retired from active service in 2018. BBC’s sources among the militants claimed that Kharchenko was arrested by the militants on charges of being involved in an unreasonable search in 2014 and of illegal possession of firearms.
BBC sources familiar with the circumstances believe that Kharchenko was isolated in order to prevent him from being spirited away by Ukrainian intelligence.
Russia’s war
Further recordings show that Andriy K. was tasked with coordinating the different groups among the militants and was also resolving conflicts that arose between different Russian agencies in their fight over the control of the occupied Donbas.
The SBU presents Dubinsky as a “major general” of the Russian GRU, yet the phone conversations reveal that Dubinsky had a weak standing among the Russians and relied on Surkov, though Andriy K., in his dealings with Russia.
According to the SBU, the problem was that the FSB was fighting with the GRU. Surkov, with whom Andriy K. was frequently in contact, was said to be on the side of the GRU.
According to the phone conversations, the FSB was blocking shipments of contraband from militant territory to Russia and vice versa and allegedly demanding a levy.
In a conversation with Kharchenko, Andriy K. mentions that the local gossip that FSB officials met with Dmitriy Avtonomov, who the SBU believes was responsible for militant’s contraband in 2014, isn’t true and that Russian officials don’t want contact with the militants directly.
The call was presumably recorded in late 2014 as New Year is mentioned.
The conflict was apparently resolved after Dubinsky was welcomed in the FSB headquarters.
Andriy K. isn’t the first person connected to the downing of MH17 arrested by the SBU. In June 2019, Vladimir Tsemakh, head of the militant’s anti-aircraft brigade, was captured by the SBU in Russian-occupied territory.
In a 2015 video, Tsemakh appeared to brag that he was helping to move the Russian Buk missile launcher back to Russia after MH17 was shot down. In Ukraine, Tsemakh was initially tried for terrorism. But the Joint Investigation Team sees him as a suspect in the MH17 investigation since he commanded the anti-aircraft brigade responsible for the area where MH17 was shot down.
On Sept. 7, Tsemakh became part of the prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine. He was one of the 35 prisoners handed over to Moscow in exchange for 35 Ukrainians held in Russia.
Even though Russia has denied involvement in shooting down MH17, it made Tsemakh’s release a strict condition for the exchange to take place, according to the people negotiating the swap on the Ukrainian side.
