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Iran blames disastrous mistake for the downing of Flight 752.

After maintaining for days that there was no evidence that one of its missiles had struck a Boeing 737-800 minutes after it took off from Tehran on Wednesday with 176 people on board, Iran admitted early on Saturday that its military had shot down the passenger jet by mistake.

The military blamed human error. In a statement, it said Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 had taken a sharp, unexpected turn that brought it near a sensitive military base. Hours later, though, an Iranian official walked back that claim.

The plane was flying in its normal direction without any error and everybody was doing their job correctly, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps airspace unit, said during a televised news conference later Saturday. If there was a mistake, it was made by one of our members.

In a post on Twitter, Irans foreign minister, Mohamad Javad Zarif, apologized but appeared to also blame American adventurism for the tragedy, writing: Human error at time of crisis caused by US adventurism led to disaster.

President Hassan Rouhani said on Twitter that Iran deeply regrets this disastrous mistake.

In a statement cited by the semiofficial Fars News Agency, the president offered condolences to the victims families and said that the terrible catastrophe should be thoroughly investigated and those responsible would be prosecuted.

But facing the possibility of American military strikes on Iran on Wednesday, Mr. Rouhani added, the armed forces made a human mistake.

This painful incident is not something we can easily overcome, he added, saying that was imperative to correct shortcomings in the countrys defense mechanisms.

Iranians vented fury toward their government after Tehrans admission, with thousands pouring into main squares around the city Saturday afternoon. Gatherings organized on social media to mourn the victims of the crash swiftly turned into angry protests against the governments actions.

Death to liars! and Death to the dictator! people chanted, according to videos posted on social media. You have no shame, shouted several young men, as the crowd joined in a chorus, another video showed.

The countrys elite security force was not spared. At universities, crowds called the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps incompetent and the peoples shame.

But as protests spread throughout the capital and to other cities, the publics anger seemed to find a one clear target: Ayatollah Khamenei, the countrys supreme leader and its commander in chief.

In Tehran, video posted to social media showed, protesters demanded that Mr. Khamenei resign, thrusting their fists in the air and screaming: Khamenei is a murderer! His regime is obsolete!

The protests turned violent in Tehran with anti-riot police using tear gas and opening water cannons at the crowd, videos showed.

Even conservatives and supporters of the government accused the authorities on social media of initially misleading the public about what had brought down the plane, whose passengers included many young Iranians on their way to Canada for graduate study.

The semiofficial Fars News Agency, which is affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, posted a harsh commentary condemning Irans leaders, saying their shortcomings have made this tragedy twice as bitter.

It is pivotal that those who were hiding the truth from the public for the past 72 hours be held accountable, we cannot let this go, it read.

Individuals, media, political and military officials who commented in the past 72 hours must be investigated. If they knew of the truth and were deliberately speaking falsehood or for any reason were trying to hide it, they must be prosecuted, no matter what post they hold.

Siamak Ghaesmi, a Tehran-based economist, addressed the countrys leaders in an Instagram post: I dont know what to do with my rage and grief. Im thinking of all the human errors in these years that were never revealed because there was no international pressure. Im thinking of the little trust left that was shattered. Im thinking of the innocent lives lost because of confronting and being stubborn with the world. What have you done with us?

Mohamad Saeed Ahadian, a conservative analyst in Iran, said on Twitter, There are two major problems with the Ukrainian Airlines issue. One is firing at an airplane and two is firing at the publics trust. The first can be justified, but the latter is a mistake with absolutely no justification.

Some social media posts made use of the term harsh revenge, which Irans leaders had promised to inflict on the United States for the killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, a top Revolutionary Guards commander; an Iraqi militia leader, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis; and others as they left the airport in Baghdad. The generals killing sent shock waves through the Middle East and led to calls for revenge in Iran, as well as a vote by Iraqs Parliament to oust American troops from that country.

Mojtaba Fathi, an Iranian journalist, wrote on Twitter, They were supposed to take their harsh revenge against America, not the people.

The British ambassador to Iran was briefly detained by the authorities in Tehran as protests exploded across the country, a move denounced by Britain as a flagrant violation of international law.

The ambassador, Rob Macaire, was held for a few hours after being picked up during a demonstration at Amir Kabir University, one of the large protests sites in Tehran, according to Tasnim, an official Iranian news agency.

Tasnim said Mr. Macaire was detained for involvement in provoking suspicious acts, a claim that was immediately disputed by British officials.

The arrest of our ambassador in Tehran without grounds or explanation is a flagrant violation of international law, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said in a statement. The Iranian government, he added, was at a crossroads.

It can continue its march toward pariah status with all the political and economic isolation that entails, or take steps to de-escalate tensions and engage in a diplomatic path forwards, Mr. Raab said.

The Iranian authorities plan to summon Mr. Macaire for questioning on Sunday, Tasnim reported.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine praised the 45-member Ukrainian investigative team that arrived in Iran this week for helping bring the circumstances of the disaster to light.

Their high professionalism and promptness and the preliminary evidence they found in Tehran have not allowed the truth to be hidden, Mr. Zelensky said in a video address on Saturday.

In the address, Mr. Zelensky said Ukraine had received important intelligence from the United States and Britain, but he called on the international community to be persistent until all the circumstances of the crash are identified.

He pledged that the guilty will be punished and that the bodies of Ukrainians killed in the crash would be returned promptly.

Earlier, in a Facebook posting, Mr. Zelensky said Kyiv would insist on a full admission of guilt from Iran. Mr. Zelensky had come under some domestic criticism this week for refusing to publicly blame Iran for the disaster even as the United States, Canada and Britain did.

The lead Ukrainian investigator said Iran had little choice but to allow his team access to the site because the International Civil Aviation Organization would have closed Iranian airspace if it had not.

As we saw it, Iran had to face the reality that theres no way theyll get out of this, he said.

But Mr. Danilov said Iranian authorities had complicated the investigation by scraping the wreckage into piles rather than photographing and mapping the coordinates. Over all, he said, they had acted inappropriately.

When a catastrophe happens, everything is supposed to stay in its place. Mr. Danilov said. Every element is described, every element is photographed, every element is fixed in terms of its location and coordinates. To our great regret, this was not done.

The Trump administration had for hours stayed relatively quiet about Irans admission and the tumultuous aftermath. But by Saturday afternoon, both President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had weighed in on Twitter.

There cannot be another massacre of peaceful protesters, nor an internet shutdown, Mr. Trump wrote, apparently referring to the deadly repression of protests in November. Though human rights issues have not typically been at the top of the administrations agenda, Mr. Trump called on the Iranian authorities to allow rights groups to monitor the protests and report abuses.

For his part, Mr. Pompeo said that Iranians are fed up with the regimes lies, corruption, ineptitude and brutality. He described the government led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as a kleptocracy.

The voice of the Iranian people is clear, Mr. Pompeo said.

Flight 752 followed the same departure route as other planes leaving on Wednesday, Igor Sosnovsky, the airlines vice president for flight operations, told reporters on Saturday. There was no deviation from any routes that some are hinting at, he said.

Iranian officials initially said that the plane had taken an unexpected turn that brought it near a sensitive military base, but hours later a top official walked back that claim and said the plane was flying in a normal direction.

The airline presented maps showing the jet took a similar path out of the airport as other departures Wednesday morning and the same path that Flight 752 had taken on dozens of previous departures from November to January.

Irans decision not to shut down its airspace on Wednesday morning, shortly after it struck American positions in Iraq, was absolutely irresponsible, Mr. Sosnovskiy said.

When you act in war, then you act however you wish, he said at a news conference. But there must be protection around ordinary people. If they are shooting somewhere from somewhere, they are obliged to close the airport.

Yevhen Dykhne, the airlines president, said the Iranians had provided no information about possible risks before the planes takeoff.

A commander of the aerospace division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in Iran, Amirali Hajizadeh, said on Saturday that he accepted responsibility for the planes downing minutes after takeoff in Tehran, according to Iranian state TV.

In a televised address, he gave more details about the sequence of events that he said had led to the disaster. He said it had been misidentified as a cruise missile, and was shot down with a short-range missile.

He also said that the Iranian missile operator had acted independently because of jamming.

I wish I was dead, Mr. Hajizadeh was quoted as saying by local news outlets. I accept all responsibility for this incident.

He said that whatever decision the Iranian authorities made, I will accept with the arms open.

The downing came hours after Iran had fired a barrage of missiles at two American air bases in neighboring Iraq, in retaliation for an American drone strike that killed a top Iranian general, an Iraqi militia leader and others in Baghdad.

Asked during his address why Iranian airspace was not shut to commercial air traffic amid the attacks, Mr. Hajizadeh had no clear answer.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada said on Saturday that he was furious and outraged at the Iranian government.

Canada will not rest until we get the accountability, justice and closure that the families deserve, Mr. Trudeau said at a news conference. Canada and the world still have many questions questions that must be answered.

He repeated his demand that Canada participate in the crash investigation with the full cooperation of Iranian authorities. Providing compensation to the families, Mr. Trudeau added, should be part of the mix.

Mr. Trudeau told President Hassan Rouhani of Iran in a phone call earlier in the day that the admission of responsibility was an important step but that much more needed to be done.

The crash killed 57 Canadians, including a number of students and faculty at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. More than 25 residents of Edmonton were on the plane.

In Canada, Iranians are comparative newcomers: Most arrived after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Today, by some counts, Canada has the third-largest number of expatriate Iranians in the world and its universities are a top destination for Iranian graduate students.

Though Canada has not had diplomatic relations with Iran since 2012, Mr. Trudeau spoke to President Hassan Rouhani of Iran on Saturday and said the Iranian leader promised to cooperate with Canadian investigators.

International pressure had been building on Iran to take responsibility. American and allied officials had said that all intelligence assessments indicated that surface-to-air missiles fired by Iranian military forces had shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752.

Hours after the crash, Ukraine International Airlines officials had consistently ruled out pilot error or mechanical problems as the cause of the crash. They had said the Boeing 737-800, which was less than four years old, was helmed by some of the airlines most experienced crew.

We never thought for a second that our crew and our plane could have been the reason for this terrible, horrific aviation catastrophe, the airlines president, Yevhenii Dykhne, said in a Facebook post on Saturday after Irans admission. These were our best young men and women. The best.

The crew maintained normal radio contact with the tower in Tehran, airline officials said, and followed a standard departure procedure for the airport. After reaching an elevation of 6,000 feet, the pilots were instructed to make a slight northerly turn. In the last communication, he said, one pilot simply read back this instruction from the tower, saying, Turn and climb.

Addressing criticism that the airline should not have sent a plane to Iran at all, in light of tensions in the region, the officials said it was Irans responsibility to close airspace if it intended to fire missiles.

There was no immediate reaction from the United States to Irans admission, but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had been the first American official to publicly confirm the intelligence assessments.

We do believe that its likely that the plane was shot down by an Iranian missile, Mr. Pompeo said at a briefing at the White House announcing new sanctions against Iran on Friday.

President Hassan Rouhani of Iran called his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, on Saturday to apologize for the downing of Flight 752.

Mr. Rouhani told Mr. Zelensky that errors made by the Iranian military led to the plane being shot down and that those responsible would be punished, according to Ukraines summary of the call.

Mr. Rouhanis statement appeared to be the latest effort at damage control by Iran, whose military first claimed that the Ukrainian flight crew had made a sharp, unexpected turn toward a military base, only to retract that accusation a few hours later.

Mr. Zelensky, in a tweet after the phone call, described Irans acknowledgment of the missile strike as a step in the right direction. He told Mr. Rouhani that the bodies of the 11 Ukrainian victims needed to be identified and repatriated by Jan. 19.

The acknowledgment of the missile version of events as the cause of the catastrophe has opened the door to continuing the investigation without any delays or obstacles, Mr. Zelensky said in a statement. I expect further constructive cooperation with Iran in accordance with the norms of international law.

Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the foreign relations committee in the Russian Senate, said Irans admission showed the downing of the plane had been a tragic incident and should not lead to further escalation between Iran and the West.

It was a tragic incident; people cannot be returned, Mr. Kosachev told the Interfax news agency. The admission of error, although not immediate, and expression of condolences is sufficient to be accepted. With this, the incident should be closed.

All sides should learn lessons from what happened, he said.

Mr. Kosachev also pushed back on reports that the missile used to strike the plane had been Russian-made. He did not deny the missiles origin, but rejected any Russian responsibility for what had happened. At the height of this tragedy, he said, it is absolutely immoral.

American intelligence officials have said that a Russian-made missile system designated SA-15 by NATO and known in Russia as the Tor struck the civilian airliner shortly after takeoff.

The Tor system is a mobile missile launch system, with eight missiles carried on either a tracked vehicle or a truck. The vehicles can operate without relying on other air defense infrastructure.

They carry both a radar to detect targets and a launch system. The low- to medium-altitude missiles were developed by Soviet engineers in the 1970s as a so-called lower-tier air defense weapon.

Russia sold the Tor systems to Iran in 2005 as part of a $1 billion arms deal and over the objection of American diplomats. It has also sold the system to more than a dozen other countries.

A New York Times analysis of flight path information and video of the missile strike determined that the plane stopped transmitting its signal for between 20 seconds and 30 seconds before it was hit.

Civilian airplanes identify themselves with radio signals constantly streaming from a system known as a transponder on the planes, said Ian Petchenik, a spokesman for Flightradar 24, which tracks the signals for flights around the world.

The Tor software relied on radar and visual identification of a plane as well as the identification signals from the transponder, John Cox, an accident investigator and former pilot who is the chief executive of Safety Operating Systems, said. If the identification is incorrect or absent from the plane, Mr. Cox said, the system will declare it a threat.

From there, he said, the missile navigates via radar, and when it gets in proximity to target it explodes, releasing deadly fragments. A second missile is usually fired immediately after the first.

At that point, the plane, in flames, glided down to its demise.

Reporting was contributed by Farnaz Fassihi, Anton Troianovski, Ian Austen, Andrew E. Kramer, James Glanz, Malachy Browne, Christiaan Triebert, Ivan Nechepurenko and Edward Wong.

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Ukraine Plane Shot Down Because of Human Error, Iran Says ...

The theory took root in vague form well before Donald Trump laid claim to the White House in 2016. The candidates close confidant tweeted about it. His campaign chairman apparently spoke about it with people close to him.

What if, the idea went, it was actually Ukraine and not Russia that was interfering in the 2016 election?

Never mind that the notion has since been amplified by the president of Russia, the country that U.S. intelligence agencies unequivocally blame for interfering in that years presidential race. Or that Trumps hand-picked FBI director and other American officials have said theres no information pointing to Ukraine interference. Or that 25 Russians stand charged in U.S. courts with hacking into Democratic emails and waging a covert social media campaign to sway American public opinion.

The Ukraine theory lives on.

Now, Trumps request for Ukraine to investigate the matter and a political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, is at the heart of a congressional inquiry that produced Trumps impeachment by the House of Representatives. A Senate trial is next.

The discredited theory, spread online by GOP allies in interviews and tweets, has been embraced by a president reluctant to acknowledge the reality of Russian election interference, and anxious to show he had reason to be suspicious of Ukraine as the U.S. withheld crucial military aid last year.

The effect: blurring the facts of the impeachment case for many Americans even before it reaches a trial that could begin with days.

Experts fear the strategy leaves the U.S. vulnerable to more misinformation campaigns in the 2020 election and signals to the Kremlin and other foreign actors that Americans are willing to cling to falsehoods.

A review by The Associated Press shows that the Ukraine conspiracy theory traces back to Trumps 2016 campaign, was spread online and later advanced by Russian President Vladimir Putin weeks after his own country was blamed for election interference. Finally, some of Americas own elected leaders made it their truth.

The ultimate victim is democracy, is the stability of our nation, said Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation expert at the nonpartisan Wilson Center, a Washington, D.C. think tank.

THE SEEDS OF A CONSPIRACY THEORY

As U.S. authorities collected evidence in 2016 that Russia had hacked and stolen years of internal emails from the Democratic National Committee, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who had cultivated extensive business contacts in Ukraine and worked for pro-Russia politicians there, was privately pointing to another culprit.

Manafort, now serving more than seven years in prison for tax fraud and other crimes, suggested then that the attack was probably executed by Ukrainians, according to FBI notes from an April 2018 interview with Rick Gates, Manaforts former deputy. The idea parroted that of Konstantin Kilimnik, a Manafort business associate who U.S. authorities have assessed has ties to Russian intelligence an accusation Kilimnik has denied.

Trump aide Michael Flynn, who later became Trumps first national security adviser, was also adamant within the campaign that Russia couldnt have carried out the attack and that U.S. intelligence wouldnt be able to figure out who had done it, Gates recalled.

That skepticism was adopted by Trump himself, who memorably said during a presidential debate that it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, OK?

All the while, U.S. officials were agreeing with a private cybersecurity firms findings that Russia was responsible, collecting evidence over the next several months that tied individual Russian military intelligence officers to the hack.

Adding to the FBIs concern was the revelation that a Trump campaign official had been told Russia had damaging information about Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. That July, the bureau opened an investigation into whether Russia and the Trump campaign were working together to sway the election in Trumps favor, a probe eventually taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller.

TWEETS, ARTICLES FUEL THEORY

As the Democrats stolen emails were published online and the U.S. prepared to publicly blame the Kremlin for the hack, assertions surfaced online that Ukraine had meddled directly or indirectly in Americas presidential campaign.

In September 2016 Roger Stone, a Trump confidant later convicted of lying about his efforts to get inside information about the emails, tweeted: The only interference in the U.S. election is from Hillarys friends in Ukraine.

His tweet highlighted a Financial Times article that said some Kyiv leaders were determined to intervene, however indirectly in the U.S. election. The story detailed efforts by Serhiy Leshchenko, a former Ukrainian parliament member who opposed Trumps bid, to expose off-the-books payments Ukraines pro-Russia political party made to Manafort.

Leshchenko maintains his efforts dont amount to interference or compare to Russias attack on the U.S. elections.

Still, some Republican legislators, including a few contacted by AP, pointed to the article as proof Ukraine interfered.

I think both Russia and Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election, Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana said last month on NBCs Meet the Press. He cited the Financial Times as evidence.

As Trump prepared to take office, news reports fueled doubts online over the conclusion that Russia had hacked the DNC and Clinton campaign.

So how and why are they so sure about hacking if they never even requested an examination of the computer servers? What is going on? Trump tweeted on Jan. 5, 2017, the day after a BuzzFeed News article reported that the FBI did not physically examine the Democrats servers to determine Russia infiltrated the system.

A Politico report days later documented a Democratic consultants opposition research in 2016 on Manaforts work in Ukraine which included consulting on behalf of former leader Viktor Yanukovych, who fled to Russia after his 2014 ouster and described efforts by some Ukraine leaders to support Clinton over Trump.

The article said there was not a top-down effort by Ukraine to push voters toward Clinton, but some Republicans now point to the reporting to support their allegations of meddling.

Citing the reports, anti-establishment conservative and liberal bloggers made misleading connections between Ukraine and CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm that traced the hack back to Russia.

This online speculation helped shape the Ukraine conspiracy theory, explained Thomas Rid, a Johns Hopkins University professor who has tracked disinformation campaigns and election interference.

The landscape has made it so easy to find rabbit holes, and go down these rabbit holes, stay there, and find a community of like-minded amateur sleuths, Rid said.

It is the nebulous nature of the Ukrainian theory, which leaves room for both direct and indirect interference, that has given the idea a shape-shifting, evolving form that has contributed to its staying power.

One online commentator misleadingly claimed CrowdStrikes co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch works for a think tank funded by a Ukrainian oligarch. Alperovitch is a fellow at the Atlantic Council, which is based in the U.S. and receives funding from a variety of sources. Donations from Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuks foundation made up less than less than 1.6 percent of the groups funding in 2018.

A great deal of misinformation relies upon serendipity or mere contacts, said John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and director of the Atlantic Councils Eurasia Center. Then they draw egregious or conspiratorial conclusions based on those contacts.

Putin himself weighed in days after Trump moved into the White House, publicly claiming that Ukraines entire government had favored Clinton during the election and now needed to improve relations with the new Trump administration.

As we all know, during the presidential campaign in the United States, the Ukrainian government adopted a unilateral position in favor of one candidate, Putin said in at a news conference that February with Hungarys prime minister.

Russian media used the comments to suggest it was Ukraine that had actually interfered.

It was convenient for the Kremlin to point the finger at another offender: Just weeks earlier, U.S. intelligence agencies had released a detailed report accusing Russia of interfering in the election on Trumps behalf. And Ukraine was the perfect scapegoat, experts said. The Kremlin has been locked in a 5-year war with Ukraine that has killed more than 14,000 people.

Its in Russias interest to amplify this issue because it wants Ukraine to be undermined, said Jankowicz, the disinformation expert.

By April 2017, the Ukraine conspiracy theory was being promoted by Trump himself.

TRUMP TESTS NEW UKRAINE CONSPIRACY THEORY

Trump sat at the desk of the Oval Office, just shy of his first 100 days on the job, when he falsely suggested in an Associated Press interview that CrowdStrike had even stronger ties to Ukraine.

I heard its owned by a very rich Ukrainian, thats what I heard, Trump said. Why didnt they allow the FBI in to investigate the server? I mean, there is so many things that nobody writes about. Its incredible.

In fact, CrowdStrike is a publicly held California company founded by two U.S. citizens George Kurtz and Alperovitch, who was born in Russia but spent his adult life in America. The company has identified cyberattacks for major U.S. clients, including the U.S. government and the National Republican Congressional Committee.

And the FBI didnt need to physically take the DNC servers to confirm CrowdStrikes findings that Russia was behind the attack, said Eugene H. Spafford, a computer science professor at the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security at Purdue University who has assisted the bureau in cases.

Instead, CrowdStrike took digital images of the DNC system, capturing files, photos, emails, and browsing history to determine who had breached the system. Copies of those images were then handed over to the FBI, the company says.

The process is similar to how investigators at a crime scene take photos that are later analyzed for clues.

A physical review of the DNCs data, a cloud system comprised of at least 140 servers, would have disabled the Democrats computer systems for days or weeks amid a presidential election, Spafford noted.

But Trump took his suspicions about the servers directly to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the newly elected Ukraine president in the now-infamous July 25 phone call that resulted in articles of impeachment against Trump.

I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike ... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... Trump asked of Zelenskiy on the call, according to notes released by the White House in September. The server, they say Ukraine has it.

Dozens of news outlets debunked Trumps comments and continue to do so. Finding itself at the center of the phone call, CrowdStrike then released a blog post rebuffing the presidents claims. The presidents own national security advisers rebutted the theory to no avail, former White House aide Fiona Hill told impeachment investigators in November.

We spent a lot of time ... trying to refute this one in the first year of the administration, Hill said.

THE THEORY ENDURES

Still, Trump keeps the notion alive.

He insisted to Fox News viewers in November that he only withheld aid from Ukraine to investigate corruption in the country, hinting once again that the DNCs servers are hidden there.

You know, the FBI has never gotten that server, Trump said Thats a big part of this whole thing. Why did they give it to a Ukrainian company?

Parts of the Ukraine election interference theory have since been echoed by a growing number of the presidents Republican allies some of whom concede that Russia interfered but posit that Ukraine did too.

Days before the president was impeached, Sen. Ted Cruz told NBCs Meet the Press that theres considerable evidence that Ukraine had interfered.

His office later said in a statement: Russias campaign to interfere in our election was real and systematic. It is also true that Ukrainian officials did not want...then-candidate Trump to win. The two are not mutually exclusive.

And as his Senate impeachment trial looms, Trump is pressing GOP senators to rally behind the discredited theory asking his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani to brief them on his trip to eastern Europe, where he searched for witnesses and documents to back up the claims. Videos documenting his trip have aired on the pro-Trump television network, One America News, and have been viewed thousands of times online.

Hill, a Russia expert, told Congress in November that political leaders who spread such falsehoods about Ukraine are only polarizing the U.S. further and turning it into an easy target for misinformation campaigns by such foreign powers as Russia.

She warned: These fictions are harmful even if they are deployed for purely domestic political purposes.

_____

Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington and Yuras Karmanau in Kyiv contributed to this report.

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As trial nears, Trump keeps discredited Ukraine theory alive - The Associated Press

Angelina Kariakina had barely slept, in the early hours of January 8th, when her phone rang. Kariakina is the editor-in-chief of Hromadske.TV, Ukraines independent, collectively run online-and-satellite-based television station, and before she fell asleep, she had been cordinating Hromadskes coverage of Iranian missile strikes against U.S. air bases. Now, a colleague who was on vacation in a country a few time zones ahead of Ukraine was calling to say that a Ukrainian passenger plane had crashed soon after takeoff from the Tehran airport. Kariakina got up and started reporting.

Kariakina, who is thirty-four, was in a unique position to report the story and grasp its context. She was, until very recently, married to an Iranian-born Ukrainian citizen, and lived briefly in Tehran, in 2008 and 2009. Her father and an entire community of family friends are pilots.

She called her father first. The crash was being reported as an accidentan early theory had it that an engine had caught on fire right after takeoff. This would have been the first fatal accident in the twenty-seven-year history of Ukraines national carrier, Ukraine International Airlines. Her father immediately questioned the official version. He said that a Boeing 737, which he had flown, can stay in the air for up to half an hour with one of its engines on fire, giving the pilots enough time for two attempts at landing. Kariakina made more callsto family friendsand they affirmed her fathers opinion. She also learned that the crew included three experienced pilots. She began to suspect that the plane had been shot down, but she felt that Hromadske couldnt advance this theory until an official source did. (Iran has since admitted to mistakenly shooting down the plane, killing a hundred and seventy-six passengers.)

While they waited for official information about the crash, Kariakina asked a young reporter to go to the international airport outside of Kyiv to learn all she could about the eleven Ukrainian pilots, crew members, and passengers who had died in the crash. After the reporter returned, Kariakina assigned her to report on the life and work of flight attendants in general. Using another editor as a go-between, the reporter communicated that she was having trouble with the story. She said that she couldnt sleep because, every time she closed her eyes, she flashed back to her conversations with the surviving relatives of the crew, Kariakina told me. She was upset that I was handing out these assignments so quickly, without talking them over. My immediate reaction was outrage at her being so sensitive. And then I thought, Maybe I should be outraged at myself for being insensitive.

For Kariakina and her generation of Ukrainian journalists, the crash is the latest in a long line of tragedies to report on: more grief, more dead bodies, and, she fears, more that will never be known. Her experience of life in Iran tells her just how difficult it will be to obtain full and accurate information about what happened. (Iran initially denied that a missile was responsible for the crash.) Her experience of working in Ukraine has taught her too well just how damaging not knowing can be. I feel like I live in a country of constant injustices and unanswered questions, Kariakina said.

She is probably best known for her coverage of the investigation and prosecution of the killing of eighty-two protesters during the 2013-14 Revolution of Dignity in Kyiv. Kariakina and her colleague Anastasia Stanko were some of the only journalists to interview some of the special-forces officers accused in the killings while they were in pre-trial detention. The investigation lasted more than five years, but, at the end of last year, the five defendants in the case were released on personal recognizance. They are now believed to be living in separatist territories in eastern Ukraine, and Kariakina fears that they will never have to testify in court.

Kariakina also reported on the 2014 downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, or MH-17, which was shot down by Russian-backed Ukrainian separatists, killing the two hundred and ninety-eight people onboard. Because the plane went down in territory controlled by the separatists, Ukrainian journalists could not access the site, and had to rely on information passed on by Western colleagues. This investigation, too, dragged on for years; a criminal trial will finally start in March, in the Netherlands, where the flight originated, and Kariakina and her colleagues will be covering it in the hopes, she said, that at least one of the recent tragedies will have its full story told.

The continuing unspooling of the story of MH-17 provides an eerie echo to the Ukraine Airlines crash; its one of the reasons this latest tragedy has been painfully easy to absorb. Many people here also remember the downing of a Russian airplane over the Black Sea, in 2001that time it was a Ukrainian missile that went astray during military exercises. Bizarre as it may seem to most people in most countries, here, the possibility that a commercial passenger plane was accidentally brought down by a surface-to-air missile is very plausible.

Kariakina thinks that this long string of apparent terrible luck has created a kind of victimhood mind-set. People say, Why did MH-17 get shot down over our land? Why did Russia attack us? Why did our plane get shot down for nothing? For a young journalist, this is an unappealing line of questioning. I dont want to spend my life talking about [Vladimir] Putin and the Kremlin. I would rather direct my gaze inside the country. But its very hard to express doubt, to ask difficult questions in the face of so much grief and injustice. It feels like we have to finish grieving first. And so people can always tell you that its not the right time to ask questions.

The inability to tell complete stories can only compound this sense of victimhood, and the conspiracy thinking it can breed. It can also make a whole country feel smalland it doesnt help when your politics and your tragedy seem like footnotes or externalities of other countries problems. Kariakina reminded me, and perhaps herself, that Ukraine is a large European countryit occupies an area far larger than Germany and a bit larger than France, and its population is roughly equal to that of Spainwith, among other things, a highly developed aviation industry. Ukraine is home to the Antonov plant, which once manufactured the largest and most powerful freight airliners in the world. Kariakina said that she would like to report stories on the network of airports that feel like imperial leftovers, on the large numbers of highly qualified pilots, like her father, who hardly fly anymore;, and on the aviation job market, because Ukraine International Airlinesthe only airline that pays its pilots wellhas only so many jobs. But the loss of wealth and dignity are the sorts of things journalists tend to overlook when all they seem to cover, all the time, are dead bodies.

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How a Journalist in Kyiv Responded to the Downing of a Ukrainian Passenger Plane - The New Yorker

Ukraines president has posted a plea on Facebook and Twitter asking the United States, Iran, and Canada to share whatever evidence they have to suggest that Iran shot down the Ukrainian passenger jet that crashed on Wednesday, killing all 176 people on board.

The request came after US intelligence officials were quoted in the media as saying that Iran had accidentally downed the plane shortly after it took off from the capital, Tehran.

Ukraine is interested in the truth. We ask all our international partners to assist the investigation and provide any relevant evidence that they may have, Volodymyr Zelensky's office said, following phone calls with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

A Ukrainian official involved in internal discussions in Kyiv told BuzzFeed News that Zelensky made the public plea because the US had not yet shown him the evidence it claims to have about the crash. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said at the time of publishing this article that, to his knowledge, Ukraine had still not been shown any evidence by the US.

In a press conference, Trudeau made clear his belief that the plane had been shot down and called for a "thorough investigation."

Zelenskys spokesperson didnt answer a call for comment. Another administration official declined to say whether the president had been contacted by the Trump administration or anyone in the US government ahead of the media reports citing US officials.

A Ukrainian diplomat said he had reached out to his US counterparts but hadnt received any information by the time this article was published. Another Ukrainian diplomat echoed what Zelensky said in a video address released earlier on Thursday: that the sensitive nature of the issue should be treated with caution and that its important that the governments statements are based on facts rather than conjecture.

Speaking to reporters in Washington, DC, on Thursday, President Trump said he suspected the plane crash wasn't due to mechanical problems. Asked what he thought brought down the plane, he said, "Well, I have my suspicions."

"It was flying in a pretty rough neighborhood," he said. "They could've made a mistake. Some people say it was mechanical. I personally don't think that's even a question."

He added, "Something very terrible happened, very devastating."

For Kyiv, the Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 crash strikes a tragic, familiar chord because it so closely resembles the confusing moments following Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 being shot down by a Russian missile system over eastern Ukraine that killed all 298 passengers and crew members in 2014.

The two scenarios are remarkably similar: A commercial airliner carrying scores of civilians falls from the sky in a ball of flames, sparking tensions in a corner of the world fraught with geopolitical dangers. In the aftermath, the country in possession of the black boxes says it wont share them, raising eyebrows about the cause of the plane crash. Conspiracy theories and speculation, fueled by confusing government statements and low-res photographs from the crash site, swirl as local authorities on the ground and open-source investigators working from their desks at home begin combing through the evidence. And then, the media carries comments from unnamed US intelligence officials who havent reached out to the Ukrainian government and who say the plane appears to have been shot down by a Russian-made air defense system by accident.

Flight 17 was shot down on July 17, 2014, at the height of Russias war against Ukraine. As the Ukrainian armed forces moved to retake key cities in the countrys eastern region that summer, they had Russias military forces and separatist militias on the run. Then Moscow smuggled its big guns into Ukraine, including a Buk surface-to-air missile system. It was a turning point in the war, and it galvanized much of the international community against Russia. A team of international experts investigating the case has since documented Russias involvement and said the incident seemed to have been a case of military error. The experts alleged that whoever fired the Buk missile that downed the plane probably thought they were aiming at a military aircraft and not a civilian airliner. Four men have been charged for their alleged involvement.

In the case of Flight 752, the crash over Tehran came as the US and Iran seemed like they might be veering dangerously toward war. Hours before, Tehran launched missile strikes against US forces in Iraq in retaliation for the US missile attack that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

Before news of the US intelligence broke, Kyivs top national security official said on Thursday that the country was investigating whether Iran accidentally shot down the plane using a Russian-made missile. He said this even as Zelensky released a video urging against speculation until there is more evidence.

Overnight, Zelenskys office said a 45-person team of officials and investigators, including those who worked on the downing of Flight 17, had arrived in Iran to investigate the crash of Flight 752. Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraines National Security Council, wrote on Facebook that Kyiv was negotiating with Iran to allow its experts access to the crash site southwest of Tehran where the 3-year-old Boeing plane exploded after striking the ground just minutes after takeoff.

Danilov specifically said Ukraine wanted to search the crash site for fragments from a Russian-made Tor anti-aircraft missile after seeing photographs shared on social media that purported to show the tip of a Tor missile near the site. BuzzFeed News couldnt reach him to ask whether he had viewed an unverified video shared on social media that purported to show the moment a missile struck the plane. But the Ukrainian official who said Zelensky had not yet seen the US evidence of a missile attack said his colleagues were reviewing the video.

Danilov said the team would consider seven theories in all, four of which he made public. Those include a missile strike, a midair collision with a drone or another flying object, and an engine explosion due to mechanical failure.

We will use everything we learned investigating the attack on the MH17 Boeing to establish the truth in the case of the crash of the Ukrainian plane in Tehran, Danilov wrote on Facebook.

In the aftermath of the plane crash, theres been a flurry of accusations and counteraccusations.

Iranian officials first claimed the plane crashed because of technical failure following a fire, but refused to hand over the black boxes found at the crash site to Boeing. Earlier on Thursday, Western media cited intelligence sources who suggested a technical problem triggered the crash. But rumors swirled of the crash possibly being the result of a missile attack.

Then reports citing Western intelligence officials surfaced later in the day, saying a Russian-made missile fired by Iran was the cause of the crash. In response, the head of Irans Civil Aviation Organization dismissed what he called illogical rumors about the Ukrainian airliner being hit by a missile, Reuters reported, citing the state-run Iranian Students News Agency.

Scientifically, it is impossible that a missile hit the Ukrainian plane, and such rumors are illogical, Ali Abedzadeh told ISNA.

The saga has weighed heavily on the people of Ukraine, who have seen their country get entangled in two accidental downings of passenger jets in less than six years. The country continues to find itself at the center of the Trump impeachment saga dragging on in Washington.

Summarizing Kyivs frustration, Ukrainian journalist Kristina Berdynskykh tweeted: Ukraine fell into a whirlpool and cant get out of it. First, Ukraine was dragged into US internal politics [with the impeachment saga]. Now, if the information is confirmed, the Ukrainian plane in Iran was shot down by a Russian missile. I dont even know what to expect next.

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The Specter Of MH17 Is Looming Large Over The Ukrainian Plane Crash Probe In Iran - BuzzFeed News

RICHMOND HILL, Ontario The last time Meisam Salahi talked to his younger brother, Mohsen Salahi, few words were spoken.

Mohsen, 31, and his wife, Mahsa Amirliravi, 30, were returning to Toronto from Iran, where they had been visiting relatives, and had just boarded Ukraine International Airlines flight 752 in Tehran.

Meisam, 34, called Mohsen because he was worried after hearing that Iran had fired a dozen ballistic missiles at two Iraqi air bases hosting U.S. forces.

But Mohsen was in a rush, so Meisam said he would see him when he returned or at Cestar College, where they both taught engineering.

He said, Yeah, yeah for sure, Meisam recalled in an interview. I said bye.

But Mohsen and Amirliravi never made it.

The flight was shot down last Wednesday near Tehran by Irans military, killing all 176 people on board. Iranian officials initially denied the country was responsible, but early Saturday, Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani, acknowledged its military had unintentionally shot it down because of human error. Rouhani said an investigation would identify and prosecute those responsible for this great tragedy & unforgivable mistake.

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Protesters in Iran took to the streets Sunday, calling on the countrys Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, to step down after the government reversed course and admitted it was responsible.

But thousands of miles away in his adopted country of Canada, where he and his brother had moved more than a decade ago from Iran, Meisam Salahi struggled with unsparing loss and grief. In an interview at Mohsen and Amirliravi's home in the Toronto suburb of Richmond Hill, he was still in shock.

I cant believe it that Im sitting here, in his house and hes not here, Meisam said. Hes supposed to be here.

Meisam learned about their deaths during a sleepless night last week as he worried about what might happen in the aftermath of Irans missile strikes. At around 4 a.m., he switched on his phone.

A friend in Iran had sent him a message on WhatsApp, asking where he was. Confused, he checked with another friend, who told him he hoped this would be the last sad message Meisam would get.

I said, What are you talking about?" He said, 'Call your mom, Meisam recalled. Im like, OK.' Then my hands start shaking.

When he got through to his mother, she was crying. At first he thought his father had died, which gave him some solace because his father had lived a long, well-traveled life. Then she said his brothers name.

I fell on the floor, Meisam said, adding, How am I going to live the rest of my life without him, without her?

Talking with his father-in-law about what may have happened after the plane was struck brought him a measure of comfort. He thought of Mohsen and Amirliravi together, holding hands, saying I love you to each other.

I think that was their last moment, he said. I could imagine that.

Meisam and his wife, Kristin, are expecting a baby boy next month. Before his brothers death, Meisam had run a couple potential names by Mohsen, who wasnt excited about them, but he wasnt negative either.

He said both of them are nice like, 'OK, interesting, and you guys decide, whatever,' Meisam recalled.

So they did. His name will be Mohsen.

Jamie Morrison reported from Ontario and Tim Stelloh from California.

Jamie Morrison

Jamie Morrison is an NBC News producer based in Atlanta.

Tim Stelloh is a reporter for NBC News, based in California.

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Brother of victim in downed Ukrainian plane: 'He's supposed to be here' - NBC News