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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.

Original post:
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.

See the article here:
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

A Russian state propagandist is casting blame on Ukraine for the recent plane crash near Tehran echoing the disinformation that emerged after the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in 2014.

Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 crashed shortly after takeoff on Wednesday. All 176 people on board, including a large contingent of Canadians and Iranians, were killed.

The comments comparing this crash to Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 came from Alexander Malkevich, the chair of the Commission of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation for the development of media, and the former head of US-focused propaganda site called USA Really.

A Russian-language article from the Federal News Agency reported that Malkevich said, This is the second time Ukraine is placing civilian planes in military conflict.

This was a reference to the downing of MH17 over Ukraine almost six years ago, which set off a wave of disinformation and international investigations.

FANs recent coverage about events in Iran and Iraq floated additional baseless theories, claiming the US was responsible for the plane crash, and that the US was hiding casualties from Irans recent missile strikes on army bases in Iraq.

Any chance that Russia gets theyre going to try to discredit the United States, and try to discredit Ukraine, said Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center and the author of the upcoming book How to Lose the Information War. I dont think its surprising Malkevich is saying this.

Malkevich is a familiar figure to US authorities. In 2018, he attempted to organize a rally outside the White House to promote the website USA Really, an English-language site he ran for FAN. At one point, FAN was based out of the same location in St. Petersburg as the Internet Research Agency, the infamous troll factory indicted for attempting to influence US elections.

Malkevichs interview and FANs other coverage show how Russia is quick to fill any post-disaster information vacuum with confusion, conspiracies, and propaganda, according to Jankowicz. She said it echoes the Russian governments history of sowing disinformation and denying responsibility for the MH17 disaster and the Skripal poisoning.

Theyre always going to be spinning and coming up with crazy stuff, she said. Im certain Sputnik and RT will be spinning these narratives soon and other narratives, as well. Its more of the same.

In the interview with FAN, which was sanctioned by the US for its role in spreading disinformation about the 2016 and 2018 elections, Malkevich also denied Russia was responsible for the shooting down of MH17. Both Dutch authorities and independent investigators concluded Russia was responsible and that the plane was hit by a Russian missile after compiling incriminating radio transmissions and phone calls by Russian soldiers.

Still, Malkevich claimed he had obtained information that would show something different.

In the case of the more recent crash involving the Ukrainian airliner, initial reporting and statements from Iranian authorities pointed to an issue with the plane. But on Thursday, US media reported that intelligence sources had concluded the plane was shot down, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed that conclusion in public comments. Trudeau cited intelligence from multiple sources, including our allies and our own intelligence. He also said the shooting down of the plane may have been accidental, echoing US President Donald Trump, who said "somebody could have made a mistake."

The Iranian government has denied those claims. It has also refused to let outside investigators examine the evidence and has not shared the aircrafts black boxes.

The Ukrainian president, meanwhile, cautioned against speculation and made a plea for evidence.

The dueling narratives about the cause of the plane crash are yet another example of the rumors and falsehoods that have spread about the USs killing of Iranian military general Qassem Soleimani, Irans retaliation, and the plane crash. When news of the crash first spread, many people shared unverified and out of context photos, feeding speculation and conflicting theories.

Read more from the original source:
Russian Propagandists Are Spreading Conspiracies About The Ukrainian Plane That Was Shot Down - BuzzFeed News

What President Trump Said

By the way, in terms of the money, it got there two or three weeks ahead of schedule, long before it was supposed to be there.

False. President Trump was wrong in asserting that his decision last year to suspend military assistance to Ukraine a key component in his impeachment and upcoming trial did not interfere with the schedule for delivering the aid.

The 2019 federal fiscal year ended on Sept. 30, the date by which all appropriated aid to Ukraine was supposed to be disbursed. But because of the freeze ordered by Mr. Trump, not all of the aid was spent before the deadline.

Congress had appropriated $391 million in military assistance to Ukraine $250 million from the Pentagon and $141 million from the State Department meant to be spent by the end of September. Though the Pentagon announced its plans to provide the aid in June, White House officials blocked its release in July. It remained frozen until mid-September, when Mr. Trump relented after pressure from lawmakers and administration officials.

With just two weeks left in the fiscal year, the Pentagon was unable to fully disburse the funds. According to testimony from Mark Sandy, an official in the Office of Management and Budget, about $35 million was left unspent. Congress then extended the deadline to the 2020 fiscal year to allow for the disbursement of the remaining aid.

Had that provision not been included, then any unobligated funds as of Sept. 30 would have expired, Mr. Sandy said.

What Mr. Trump Said

We have thousands of ISIS prisoners that were keeping right now under lock and key. And we want Europe to take many of these prisoners because they came from Germany, France and other places probably a few from Greece, in all fairness.

This is exaggerated. Estimates from Mr. Trumps own administration show that he is overstating the share of Islamic State fighters who hail from Europe.

James F. Jeffrey, the State Departments special envoy for Syria, said in August that about 8,000 ISIS fighters from Syria and Iraq and another 2,000 foreign fighters were being detained by the Syrian Democratic Forces, the loose coalition of militias fighting the terrorist group.

Of those foreign fighters, about 800 are European and the rest are from former Soviet republics, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia, according to a Pentagon inspector general report from August. The report and other analysts have noted that many of those places are hesitant to repatriate their citizens, fearing political backlash or hurdles in prosecution.

As for Mr. Trumps contention that a few ISIS fighters are Greek nationals, the nonprofit Counter Extremism Project concluded that the number was not well documented but said that Greece had been used as a transit point for fighters of European origin. A July report from the London-based International Center for the Study of Radicalization estimated that women and children affiliated with the Islamic State numbered about 6,600 from Western Europe but none from Greece.

Mr. Trump previously received pushback from the French president, Emmanuel Macron, when he told Mr. Macron in December that many fighters come from France.

Lets be serious, Mr. Macron said accurately. The very large numbers of fighters on the ground are the fighters coming from Syria, from Iraq.

Other claims

Mr. Trump also revived claims that The New York Times has previously fact-checked, including his often repeated falsehood that he opposed the Iraq war in the first place (he did not) and his exaggerated contention that European countries are not contributing assistance to Ukraine (they do).

Curious about the accuracy of a claim? Email factcheck@nytimes.com.

Link:
Trump Falsely Claims That Ukraine Aid Arrived Ahead of Schedule - The New York Times