Could be. In any case, operating a BUK system requires quite a bit of training - something like 6 months per army standards. It's not a playstation machine and terrorists aren't geniuses. This hints at a high chance that specialists had to be provided from abroad.

Look, I saw these numerous tweets coming from the accounts used by terrorists themselves. They are still using these accounts, openly and publicly. There's no conspiracy here and no government to trust in order to realize what happened.

I suppose it should be enough to just hint that it was Columbus who brought potato and tomato to Europe from America. Russian propaganda machine relies heavily on half-truths, and since Russians are so susceptible to those, a considerable damage can be done this way. Anything which can hurt Putin these days will do.

It does go both ways, but I argue there's a vast amount of evidence to accuse terrorists of this atrocity. They actually *confessed* doing this. The rest of the evidence is also very, very strong.

So we do have a very, very good sense of the direction to point fingers at.

Ukraine was indeed a part of the USSR and practiced propaganda intensely. This ended 23 years ago. Nowadays, he have numerous, independent news sources, so the situation is much more like what it is in e.g. EU, rather than what it is in Russia where all large TV stations are directly controlled by Kremlin.

I obviously agree that Ukraine is to gain the most from this tragic event, and yet that's the only argument for a horrible accusation of UA army shooting down this plane. One really has to have good argumentation in place in order to suggest or proceed in this direction. There has been no credible evidence for this thus far - nothing from terrorists, nothing from Kreml.

Ok thanks for the clarification. Terrorists indeed claimed to have stolen a BUK system from local Donbass military base, on 29/06: https://twitter.com/kram_ua/st... Here's another claim - they're saying they fixed it: https://twitter.com/Dbnmjr/sta...

UA army claimed all BUKs were crippled beyond repair, so it is also likely that specialists and materials needed for repair (if it indeed happened) came from Russia

Also, there's a series of intercepted phone calls between terrorists on 16-17th of July, where they discuss BUK system newly arrived from Russia.

This actually hits towards a much deeper involvement by Russian specialists.

There has been no evidence of this whatsoever.

Crimea does not have borders with Donbass region, but Russia does. Even if these BUKs were originally from Crimea, they still had to get to Donbass somehow, and the only route would be via Russia. Also, how likely is it for terrorists to have this thing shipped over without knowledge and support of this by Russian government?

In this particular case, there was exactly one terrorist group who claimed they shot down AN-26, a military support plane. Only to find out 30 minutes later it was a Malaysian Air flight. They also claimed 2 planes in 48 hours leading to the incident. They posted numerous pictures of BUK AA system(s) in their possession, in 3 weeks leading to this incident.

Funny thing is that Russians hate Americans yet their diet is largely dependent on potatoes, an originally American plant.

Do you or do you not realize that if over 5 independent news sources continually say the same thing, it can only be false if they've conspired to lie?

Donbass region is a home to some 4 million people. Sure they had perhaps 100,000 people supporting these terrorist organizations initially - sometime in April. Has it occurred to you that things changed? A video I just posted to you - right here - http://slashdot.org/comments.p... - is a nice illustration of my point.

Has it ever occurred to you that Russia has never, ever it it's history held a properly organized democratic vote where opposition won? Do you realize that this suggests that Russia is not in the business of Democracy (makes me wonder why I have to argue this)? Are you suggesting that, as someone claiming to understand applied mathematics and psychology, that for the first time in history, Russia organized it's first Democratic, completely free and representative referendums - in Crimea and Donbass?

The only fear I can see is in the eyes of the reporter when he recalls events of being held hostage by terrorists. The women at 11:20, barely 2 days since the end of war on their street, are recalling events of the past 4 weeks - and a look on their faces is just that - recalling events of the past 4 weeks. If you say they show fear, then you sort of have to admit it is directly related to surviving under terrorist rule. A women at 11:40 is upset because she does not understand how she's supposed to live in a half-destroyed house. There's also an older man cleaning broken glass out of a house. He's cautious of the camera people and does not say much. Then at 12:40 there's a 90yo woman making a tour of the remnants of her condo. There's, again, an uncertainty regarding how she's supposed to survive in these conditions, she's thankful for somebody who brought some bread, water and cleaned some of the rubble (for money). Happened *after* terrorists were gone. Where's fear? Do you have a specific offset in the stream, Minute:Second?

"Old man lashing out and instantly getting subdued at Ukrainians soldier" is something you misunderstood entirely. This old men demands for the water etc to be restored as soon as possible, and the soldier asks him to simply wait - they are still busy removing boobytraps, mines, searching for remaining terrorists. Where's the "threat"?

On the nazi thing - so you're basically claiming that a) I feel superior, b) nazis felt superior => I am a nazi. Do you really think logic works this way for the majority of people inhibiting this web site, let alone the planet?

Also, Slovyansk and other cities have been liberated for 2 weeks now. Surely nazi Ukraine army did gruesome things to the locals, and surely there must be evidence for that, available on internet for all to see as well. Can you please find some for us to see?

Let's have another Dr. Cal Lightman-style look at the emotions of civilians, now in the city of Donetsk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

This is an old, insulin-dependent lady with a disabled relative, telling Gubarev (one of the main terrorists's leaders - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...) that they have no more support from the people of Donetsk, and asks him to literally leave the city with all his gunmen. His reply is - "we can't. we've got nowhere to go".

FYI - terrorist-controlled territories do not have Ukrainian TV; they have Russian TV instead. I highly doubt this lady and her friends have facebook or twitter accounts. They have to consult their own sensory organs such as eyesight and hearing in order to get information while being literally on-site. Do you think she's living in the same "information bubble" I allegedly live in?

Okey let's take a closer look at the "sealed propaganda construct" you're claiming I'm living in. My information sources are:

first-hand experience

popular Ukrainian TV channels

large Ukrainian online publications

twitter, facebook posts made by on-site eyewitnesses - everybody these days has a phone with a camera and an access to internet. This is, after all, a country where you can get 100mbit unlimited for roughly 13 USD/month, in any city. Cellular data exchange is also universally accessible.

I personally just came back from a 2-week trip all over the central and western Ukraine, visited 10 regions, stayed in 10 cities.

On-line publications by large Western news companies

On-line publications and videos by Russian news agencies

Now, there are two ways one can go around adding 1 and 1: either do the math yourself and get "2", or one can ask around for a consensus opinion. What if the consensus is "3"? I'd say there's a conspiracy going on (and as you, as a psychiatrist, know very well that it is a prerogative of relatively retarded people to believe in large-scale conspiracies). If most of what I get from my news sources is aligned, except for info coming from Russian channels, do I go for the conspiracy theory (claiming that all my news sources are somehow not independent), or for a simpler explanation that these news sources, except for Russian ones, are sort of trying to tell the "truth" ?

My dean at the University once said that once you hear word "obvious" in a conversation, do yourself a favor and question underlying logic. Please provide a time frame for the "people who were deathly afraid" in the video in question.