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Where Ukraine's Separatists Get Their Weapons

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Where Ukraine's Separatists Get Their Weapons UKRAINE New documents and interviews add to the evidence that arms are flowing from Moscow into eastern Ukraine Where Ukraine’s separatists get their weapons BY THOMAS GROVE AND WARREN STROBEL CRASH SITE: Members of the Ukrainian Emergency Ministry carry a body near wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in Donetsk. REUTERS/MAXIM ZMEYEV SPECIAL REPORT 1 UKRAINE WHERE THE SEPARATISTS GET THEIR WEAPONS DONETSK, UKRAINE, JULY 29, 2014 n the last day of May, a surface- to-air rocket was signed out of a O military base near Moscow where it had been stored for more than 20 years. According to the ornate Cyrillic hand- writing in the weapon’s Russian Defence Ministry logbook, seen by Reuters, the portable rocket, for use with an Igla rocket launcher, was destined for a base in Rostov, some 50 km (31 miles) from the Ukrainian border. In that area, say U.S. officials, lies a camp for training Ukrainian separatist fighters. Three weeks later the rocket and its log- book turned up in eastern Ukraine, where government troops seized them from pro- Russian separatists. The logbook, which is more than 20 pages long, records that rocket 03181 en- WEAPONS TRAIL: Ukrainian servicemen (above) stand near weapons seized from pro-Russian tered service on May 21, 1993, and had separatists near Slaviansk on July 8. The log book for a Russian Igla rocket launcher (below) was also regular tests as recently as 2005 to make seized in the east. PHOTO: REUTERS/GLEB GARANICH sure it was in fighting form. The seal of the Russian Defence Ministry has been stamped over the signature sending the weapon to Rostov. A copy of the log was passed to a dip- lomat in Ukraine’s capital, Kiev. Reuters was unable to verify its authenticity with the Russian military, and Moscow has con- sistently denied arming the separatists in eastern Ukraine. The Igla and its logbook are just one indication that weapons are flowing from Russia into Ukraine. Interviews with American officials, diplomats in Kiev, and the civilian passenger plane over eastern weapons flow from Russia increased dra- Russian military analysts paint a picture of Ukraine on July 17 killed nearly 300 people. matically several weeks ago in response to a steady and ongoing flow. These people say Alexander Khodakovsky, commander of successes by Ukrainian government forces, weapons – from small arms to armoured the Vostok Battalion, told Reuters: “I knew including the recapture of Slaviansk, a personnel carriers, tanks and sophisticated that a BUK came from Luhansk (in east separatist stronghold in eastern Ukraine. missile systems – have flooded into the re- Ukraine) ... I heard about it. I think they The new shipments included anti-aircraft gion since May, fueling the violence. sent it back. Because I found out about it systems designed to combat Ukraine’s air In an interview with Reuters last week, a at exactly the moment that I found out that power, those officials said. separatist leader said that Russia may have this tragedy (of MH17) had taken place. “If you trace the increase in supplies supplied the separatists with BUK rockets, They probably sent it back in order to re- and materials ... we’ve seen in the last few which were used to shoot down Malaysia move proof of its presence.” weeks culminating in this tragic incident, Airlines flight MH17. The destruction of Three U.S. government officials said the it’s clearly in the face of successes by the SPECIAL REPORT 2 UKRAINE WHERE THE SEPARATISTS GET THEIR WEAPONS The battle over KHARKIV LUHANSK Severodonetsk eastern Ukraine Slaviansk Fighting between Ukrainian Schastia government forces and pro-Russian Artemivsk Stukalova Balka separatists have been raging in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions Flight MH17 p Oleksandrivsk Luhansk of eastern Ukraine since April. ath Grabove Area controlled by pro-Russian rebels Chervonopartizansk Avdiyivka As of July 21 As of June 18 Ilyinka Recent flashpoints Flight MH17 Donetsk crash site Chervona Zorya RUSSIA Taranu Marynivka Kiev DONETSK UKRAINE Main UKRAINE RUSSIA map ROMANIA Rostov-on-Don MOLDOVA Crimea Mariupol 20 miles Sources: Reuters; FlightAware; National Sea of Azov 20 km Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Ukrainian forces,” said a senior U.S. official, We simply took anything border guard agency said it stopped thou- who like the others spoke on condition of out of the sky that flew above us. sands of Russian citizens who tried to enter anonymity. Ukrainian territory carrying weapons or Moscow, which has said it is willing to Alexander Gureyev bags full of camouflage. cooperate with an international investiga- Luhansk separatist Separatists started firing on border guard tion into the loss of MH17, has denied positions, according to Ukrainian officials. sending any BUK missiles to the rebels. It by the militias from the Ukrainian side are On May 29, the Stanychno-Luhanske bor- has said Washington is attempting to de- used for massive troops and weaponry de- der guard division in Ukraine’s Luhansk stabilise Russia through events in Ukraine. ployment from Russia to Ukraine,” he said. province was attacked by 300 gunmen with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov Pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine small arms and grenade launchers. Rebels said this week that Moscow was hopeful maintain most of their weapons have come seized control of the facility after five days that monitors from the Organization for from captured Ukrainian armouries or have of fighting. Other border guard divisions Security and Cooperation in Europe could been seized directly from the Ukrainian and checkpoints along Ukraine’s more than be deployed along Russia’s border with military on the battlefield. 2,000-km border with Russia also fell. Ukraine to dispel suspicions that Russia is Separatists were able to ferry in people BORDER SKIRMISHES aiding the rebels. and equipment almost unhindered. “We hope that this will dispel suspicions In the weeks following Russia’s annexation That led to more ambitious attacks on that are regularly being voiced against us, of Crimea in March, tensions grew on the Ukrainian targets. On June 14, for instance, that those (border) checkpoints controlled south and east frontiers of Ukraine. Kiev’s Text continues on page 5 SPECIAL REPORT 3 UKRAINE WHERE THE SEPARATISTS GET THEIR WEAPONS Surface-to-air missile systems in Ukraine Military experts believe an Igla-1 brought down a Ukrainian military transport plane on June 14, while a Buk SA-11 was responsible for the Malaysia Airlines crash. Maximum altitude of missiles Buk SA-11 “Gadfly” Thousand feet Origin: Soviet Union/Russia Buk SA-11 70 72,200 Operation In a typical engagement, a trained crew would operate the three vehicle-mounted system. 60 50 Target Acquisition Radar Command Post vehicle At least one launcher 40 Finds potential Contains the missile Armed with four Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 targets in the air, battery's data and control radar-guided Boeing 777-200 transmits and tracks system, assigns individual missiles. 33,000 its position. launchers to targets. 30 The launcher can also operate in stand-alone mode. Using its built-in radar, it can detect and engage a target in its forward field of view. However, its ability to Ukrainian Air Force identify an aircra is limited; it can only recognise its own combat aircra. It Antonov AN-26 cannot verify the identity of other aircra. 21,300 Igla-1 (SA-16) 20 Man-portable air defense system Origin: Soviet Union/Russia SA-16 Missile Launcher 10 11,500 Human to scale 0 Source: IHS Jane’s 360 SPECIAL REPORT 4 UKRAINE WHERE THE SEPARATISTS GET THEIR WEAPONS separatists shot down a Ukrainian IL-76 military transport jet coming in to land near the eastern city of Luhansk. All 49 people on board died; charred pieces of the fuse- lage and engines littered the rolling wheat fields outside the village of Novohannivka. The weapon used that day, according to separatists who later spoke about the attack, was an Igla rocket launcher, some- times known generically as a MANPAD, for man-portable air-defence system. The origin of the weapon remains unclear: There is no evidence this was connected to the Igla rocket seized by Ukrainian forces a week later along with its log book. Iglas were used extensively in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Bosnia in the 1990s and are easy to transport and com- mon in eastern Ukraine. Videos, posted on- LEADERS: Russia’s Putin (above) attends a June ceremony to commemorate the anniversary of the line after Ukrainian troops drove separat- beginning of the Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany. Pro-Russian separatist commander Igor ists out of Slaviansk on July 7, show boxes Strelkov (below) had warned planes “not to fly in our sky.” REUTERS/MAXIM ZMEYEV marked 9M39 – the model of missile used with an Igla – stacked in the basement of There was a serious the mayor’s office. escalation in the middle of June The day after the IL-76 was shot down, Valery Bolotov, top commander of the Anton Lavrov Luhansk People’s Republic, claimed re- Russian military analyst sponsibility. “I can’t tell you anything more detailed on the IL-76, but I will repeat that the IL-76 was hit by our militia, the air defence forces of the Luhansk People’s Republic,” Bolotov, who wore a camouflage T-shirt, said in a video posted on YouTube. The commander said that separatists in in local arms warehouses. nearby airfield in retribution for the deaths Luhansk controlled nearly 80 km of the “We had to boost our arsenal,” he said. of at least eight people in what he called a border from Dolzhanksy to Izvaryna at “If you have small-calibre weapons and Ukrainian airstrike on the rebels’ headquar- that time, but denied getting weapons from they’re shooting at you with Howitzers - ters in Luhansk.
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