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  • 03.11.2020
  • The MH17 Trial Part 2: The Bezler Tapes, a Case of Red Herrings? - bellingcat

The MH17 Trial Part 2: The Bezler Tapes, a Case of Red Herrings?

October 17, 2020 MH17 Russia

Translations: Русский

When Dutch prosecutors of the court in The Hague read out their case against four suspects charged with complicity in the downing of MH17, they also explained why individuals previously linked to this crime were not (yet) indicted. One of them is former Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) separatist leader Igor Bezler, a Russian citizen with ties to Russia’s military intelligence agency (known as the GRU) who currently lives in Russian-annexed Crimea.

The main pieces of evidence that previously linked Bezler to this crime concern two of his phone calls that were originally intercepted by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU). One of the recordings was part of a conversation with alleged GRU officer Vasily Geranin in which Bezler announces the downing of an aircraft just twenty minutes after MH17. The SBU had released this recording on the day of the downing along with the accusation that the Bezler Group was directly involved in the downing of MH17.

The other intercepted conversation was released one week later and became known as the “birdie conversation”. In this call, which according to the SBU was recorded just two minutes before the downing of MH17, Bezler is informed by someone with the call sign “Naemnik” (“Mercenary”) that a “birdie” – i.e. an aircraft – flew towards him. Both calls have been the subject of much speculation in the media, and were also the subject of analysis in previous Bellingcat reports.

In this article we will reanalyse the birdie conversation against the backdrop of new information provided by the prosecution. In addition, we also go over a full version of the Geranin–Bezler call and a testimony that Bezler gave to the JIT, both of which have never been published in full. Based on the new details released during the trial, we conclude that the evidence against Bezler is inconclusive, but that it also cannot be excluded that he was involved in the operation that led to the downing of MH17. At the

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  • The MH17 Trial Part 2: The Bezler Tapes, a Case of Red Herrings? - bellingcat

same time, we also provide evidence from open sources that show Bezler has repeatedly lied about these recordings and that there is no reason to believe that they were falsified or post-dated by the SBU, as he and pro-Kremlin outlets have repeatedly alleged.

The birdie conversation and the spotting of MH17

за 2 хвилини до збиття «Боінга-777»

The Birdie conversation was uploaded to YouTube on 25 July 2014. Our most recent translation of this conversation is as follows:

Naemnik: Nikolaevich… Bezler: Yes, Naemnik

Naemnik: […spotted] a birdie fly towards you. Bezler: A birdie flying towards us? Naemnik: Yes… [just] one, for now… Bezler: A reconnaissance [aircraft] or a big one? Naemnik: Not visible behind the clouds… too high… Bezler: I see… roger… report upwards.

Back in 2019, we had published the first analysis of the birdie conversation in our report A Birdie is Flying Towards You, in which we explained (on page 9) that “Unless MH17 was somehow spotted and misidentified a second time by another unit, it was Stelmakh’s

  • 03.11.2020
  • The MH17 Trial Part 2: The Bezler Tapes, a Case of Red Herrings? - bellingcat

message that must have eventually reached the Buk crew one way or the other”. Our main findings were as follows:

The person with the call sign “Naemnik” was identified by us as Valeriy Stelmakh; a Ukrainian citizen who was at the time the DNR’s militia commandant of the town of Dzerzhynsk (Toretsk) and a subordinate to Bezler. In the call, Stelmakh tells Bezler he does not know what type of aircraft it is because it is flying beyond the clouds, suggesting that it concerned an aircraft flying at a highaltitude. Several minutes before the downing, MH17 flew over Dzerzhynsk and then the city of Horlivka at a cruising altitude in the direction of Snizhne. Therefore, Stelmakh could have indeed reported to Bezler about the spotting of MH17 – his unit was stationed in Dzerzhynsk, and the Boeing 777 flew over Dzerzhynsk in the direction of Horlivka where Bezler had his headquarters. Bezler instructs Stelmakh to report this message “upwards”, which could have meant that he was to pass on the message to someone higher in the chain of command. We speculated that this could have been 1) officers of the DNR’s intelligence agency (the “GRU DNR”) who organized the Buk transport that day (three of its members are currently prosecuted by the Dutch court); 2) the Minister of Defense of the DNR, Igor Strelkov (currently also prosecuted by the Dutch court); or 3) a member of a Russian security services (who helped organize the dispatchment of the Buk across the border into Ukraine and back).

At the same time, we also explained that there was a problem regarding this hypothesis: the SBU had reported that the phone call was made two minutes before the downing of MH17, and by then the plane had already flown past Horlivka and was about to fly over Yenakieve, meaning that the plane that Naemnik reports about was no longer flying “towards” Bezler in Horlivka. We considered the following two possible explanations for this (Birdie page 7):

It is still possible, however, that Naemnik made an error when estimating where the plane was flying at the time of the call to Bezler, or that the SBU time stamp of the recording was simply off by one or two minutes, with the phone call actually taking place three or four minutes before the downing when the aircraft was still flying inbetween Dzerzhynsk and Horlivka.

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  • The MH17 Trial Part 2: The Bezler Tapes, a Case of Red Herrings? - bellingcat

On 9 March 2020, the opening day of the MH17 trial, the Dutch prosecutors first explained why Bezler was not indicted for involvement in the downing of MH17: JIT investigators were unable to establish that the birdie conversation “truly contributed to the downing of MH17”, and that it is actually questionable whether the birdie conversation could have contributed to the shoot-down because it took place so shortly before the launch of the Buk missile. This led them to state that they “did not, and as things currently stand in the investigation still do not, consider that there is a provable criminal case against Bezler in relation to flight MH17”.

On 9 June, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service further elaborated on this by releasing a new video of the birdie conversation with further information about the recording. Some of our findings were confirmed: the person with the call sign “Naemnik” is indeed named Stelmakh, and telecom data indicates that Stelmakh and Bezler were indeed stationed in/near respectively Dzerzhynsk and Horlivka at the time of the call. However, they also released a more precise time of the call – namely from 4:18:07pm to 4:18:44pm Kyiv time – and explained that this timestamp casts doubt on whether the spotted aircraft could have actually concerned MH17 considering that the plane had already flown past Dzerzhynsk two minutes prior to the the call.

The graphic shown by the prosecution concerning the birdie conversation.

The prosecution further stated that an inquiry into the phone lines of both Bezler and Stelmakh “did not yield any information about any previous call to Stelmakh before this conversation”, and as such there is no information about who the original spotter was.

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  • The MH17 Trial Part 2: The Bezler Tapes, a Case of Red Herrings? - bellingcat

From telecom data they could also not derive that the spotting of the birdie was “passed on to anyone else after this conversation”.

While this in itself does not exclude the possibility that such messages were sent via a different communication channel, there is currently no evidence that supports this theory.

If the spotted plane did not concern MH17, the question remains: what aircraft was Stelmakh talking about instead? All the available radar data, including the ones provided by the Russian Federation, have indicated that the closest aircraft to MH17 was Singapore Airlines Flight 351 (SIN351). The prosecution stated that just before Stelmakh made his call to Bezler, SIN351 was flying 25km north of Stelmakh’s mast site at Dzerzhynsk while MH17 was by then further away at a distance of 30km. This means the investigators are considering the possibility that Stelmakh’s unit actually mistook this other passenger plane for a Ukrainian military aircraft.

Historic flight data indeed shows that two minutes before the downing of MH17, SIN351 was flying over Artemivsk (Bakhmut) in a southeastern direction. Unlike MH17, SIN351 did not fly directly towards the cities controlled by the Bezler Group (Dzerzhynsk, Horlivka, Yenakieve), but in theory it is possible that Stelmakh’s unit may have expected that it would. Although Stelmakh is heard telling Bezler that he is unable to identify the type of plane because it is flying “behind the clouds”, him or his spotters could have briefly seen part of the aircraft from afar without being able to properly distinguish it from a civilian airliner due to cloudiness.

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  • The MH17 Trial Part 2: The Bezler Tapes, a Case of Red Herrings? - bellingcat

A FlightRadar24 image showing the positions of flights MH17 and SIN351 shortly before MH17 was hit by the Buk missile. The Buk was stationed south of Snizhne (southeast of Torez on this map) at the time of the launch.

A spotting of SIN351 rather than MH17 could, in theory, still have contributed to the downing of MH17. As the JIT graphic shows, Both passenger airliners flew within the range of the Buk radar when the missile was launched. On the missile launcher’s fire dome radar, both planes would have shown up as small dots flying towards the Buk operators at the Snizhne front before they locked on to MH17. Since intercepted conversations indicated that the Buk crew mistook MH17 for a Ukrainian military plane, it is possible that they also mistook SIN351 for an enemy aircraft. The Buk operators could have turned on their radar in response to the spotting of SIN351 rather than MH17 before deciding to shoot down the latter, which was the closer of the two.

This scenario could also explain why DNR leader Igor Girkin (Strelkov) later informed the Russian authorities that he first learned about the downing of MH17 when he was informed by one of his subordinates that “the air defence had hit one of the two Su-25 aircraft of the Ukrainian air force” – possibly MH17 and SIN351.

Still, based on our own calculation, the possibility that the “birdie” concerned MH17 also remains a possibility when we consider our previous argument that Stelmakh may have

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  • The MH17 Trial Part 2: The Bezler Tapes, a Case of Red Herrings? - bellingcat

“made an error when estimating where the plane was flying at the time of the call to Bezler”. Since Stelmakh reported a plane that could not be identified because it was not visible behind the clouds, it is possible that the spotting was mostly or exclusively based on hearing the plane rather than seeing it as it flew overhead, or that there was a long gap of time between the spotting and the call to Bezler. This can be the case if we consider the following two factors as plausible scenarios:

ꢀ. An acoustic identification would have had a latency due to the speed of sound. MH17 flew at an altitude of 33,000 feet, and a spotter standing in the vicinity of Dzerzhynsk could have heard the airliner as it flew overhead in the direction of Horlivka with a latency of about 30 seconds. When we also take into account MH17’s flight path and ground speed (914 kilometers per hour), we can estimate that a spotter standing in or near Dzerzhynsk could have heard MH17 fly over between 4:16:30 and 4:17:00. It may have taken more than a minute for a spotter to report to commandant Stelmakh and/or for Stelmakh to reach for his mobile phone and call his commander Bezler at 4:18:07.
ꢁ. Stelmakh probably believed that the spotted plane was not flying as fast as a cruising airliner, and as such wrongfully assumed that MH17 had not reached Horlivka yet when he made the call to Bezler at 4:18:07, prompting him to still warn Bezler about an unidentifiable incoming “birdie”. To this it should be added that Stelmakh actually told Bezler that the plane had been observed flying in his direction at the time of the spotting, and not that they were certain that the plane was still flying in his direction.

Whether the birdie conversation concerned MH17 or not, the more precise timestamp of the recording does raise questions on the theory that Bezler and Stelmakh could have directly contributed to the downing of MH17 by passing this message onwards to people connected to the Buk after the conversation.

The intercepted conversation reportedly ended at 4:18:44, and in the prosecution statement it is mentioned that the Buk missile was likely launched at 4:19:31 – exactly 32 seconds before it struck MH17. After the call ended, there would only be 47 seconds left in which the Buk operators could have received a message from one of the two men before they launched the missile.

The prosecution explained that the greatest doubt arises from the fact that a Buk missile launcher requires at least 2 minutes and 30 seconds to switch from readiness phase 2 to readiness phase 1. This means that the birdie conversation could have only

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  • The MH17 Trial Part 2: The Bezler Tapes, a Case of Red Herrings? - bellingcat

contributed to the downing of MH17 if the missile launcher was already in phase 1 by the time they received a message about an incoming flight from the Bezler Group. In phase 1, the Buk’s on-board radar is activated, allowing the crew to select and lock in on an aerial target, but it also exposes the missile launcher to enemy radar with the risk that a Ukrainian aircraft could destroy it.

It is indeed debatable if the operators would have brought the Buk into such a vulnerable and easily detectable phase 1 already before they had received intel on any approaching aircraft. This scenario is still possible, however, if we take into account that the Buk crew operated without a Snow Drift target acquisition Radar vehicle nearby, and therefore could have decided to switch the Buk into readiness phase 1 in order to use the Buk’s on-board radar to monitor any potential incoming enemy aircraft, despite the risks attached. One reason why the Buk operators could have done this is because, if they only relied on aircraft spotters, they would have been extra vulnerable to enemy aircraft approaching them from southwest of the Snizhne front – territory that was under the control of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Another scenario in which the “birdie” could still have been about MH17 is that the spotter(s) of the aircraft had already communicated to others in the DNR about the incoming aircraft before Stelmakh informed Bezler about it. This would mean that a warning about an incoming aircraft had reached the people with the Buk at Snizhne already before the birdie conversation had ended. At the same time, this would still mean that the birdie conversation itself did not contribute to the downing of MH17.

Bezler has also commented about the birdie conversation in his answers to the JIT. Apart from alleging that the SBU has manipulated the time and date of both the Birdie and Geranin conversations, he has also claimed that his words “report upwards” (or “to the top”) did not refer to a unit higher up in the chain of command, but to his air defense units who were literally on higher ground:

Yes, I remember the conversation. “To the top” – this [meant] to the crews of ZU- 23-2 (one unit was on the roof of the UVD), [as well as] observers with Igla MANPADS on the roofs of buildings and on the tops of the spoil tips of the “Kochegarka” and “6/7” mines.

The UVD was one of Bezler’s headquarters in Horlivka, and the “Kochegarka” and “6/7” spoil tips are also in Horlivka. When we consider that Stelmakh was the commandant of

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  • The MH17 Trial Part 2: The Bezler Tapes, a Case of Red Herrings? - bellingcat

Dzerzhynsk, and that he was located in this town at the time of the call, it seems illogical that he would have understood “report upwards” as an instruction to relay the message to anti-aircraft units on rooftops and spoil tips in neighbouring Horlivka. However, it cannot be excluded that Bezler actually gave this order to one of his men who was standing next to him in Horlivka during the call, thereby creating the false impression on the recording that he gave the instruction directly to Stelmakh shortly before their line disconnected (having heard the original recording, we can confirm that the conversation ended right after this instruction).

Whereas in our 2019 report we considered the possibility that the birdie conversation was recorded more than two minutes before the downing of MH17, this turned out not to be the case. While it is still possible that Bezler and/or Stelmakh played a role in the operation that led to the downing of MH17, we now realize that the recording on its own appears to be inconclusive as evidence of direct involvement in this crime as too many questions surrounding it remain unanswered. For the Dutch prosecution a very high burden of proof is necessary to indict a foreigner over a crime that took place outside the Netherlands. It is therefore understandable that without any additional evidence Bezler or Stelmakh have not been indicted over this recording by the court in The Hague.

The Bezler–Geranin conversation revisited

So far, the prosecution has not explained why Igor Bezler was not indicted over the other intercepted conversation in which he appears to link his subordinates to the downing of an aircraft that later turned out to be MH17. This is despite the fact that it was one of the first recordings released by the SBU to the public (fewer than six hours after the crash) along with an explicit accusation in the video that the Bezler Group had shot down the aircraft using a “Russian anti-aircraft missile system”.

  • 03.11.2020
  • The MH17 Trial Part 2: The Bezler Tapes, a Case of Red Herrings? - bellingcat

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  • Latest from the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM), Based on Information Received As of 19:30, 23 May 2018 | OSCE

    Latest from the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM), Based on Information Received As of 19:30, 23 May 2018 | OSCE

    5/24/2018 Latest from the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM), based on information received as of 19:30, 23 May 2018 | OSCE Latest from the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM), based on information received as of 19:30, 23 May 2018 KYIV 24 May 2018 This report is for the media and the general public. The SMM recorded more ceasere violations in Donetsk region and Luhansk region compared with the previous reporting period. Small arms were again red near an SMM patrol, near Molodizhne. The Mission followed up on reports of civilian casualties in Troitske, Svatove, Marinka, Kruta Balka and Zaitseve. It also followed up on reports of a collapsed bridge and injuries to civilians near Ivanivka, and reports of shelling near a residential area of Talakivka. The Mission continued monitoring the disengagement areas near Stanytsia Luhanska, Zolote and Petrivske. Its access remained restricted in all three areas and elsewhere, including near Voznesenivka at the border with the Russian Federation, at a checkpoint near Khreshchatytske, and near Ivanivka. The SMM observed weapons in violation of withdrawal lines near Teple, Kalynove, Vrubivka, Vodiane and Bohoiavlenka. It continued to monitor and facilitate the access of Voda Donbassa water company employees to the Donetsk Filtration Station to facilitate repair works and keep it operational; it heard ceasere violations in the area, despite security guarantees. The SMM also continued to monitor and facilitate repairs to the Petrivske pumping station near Artema and high-voltage power lines near Yuzhna-Lomuvatka. In Kyiv, the SMM monitored a public gathering. In Donetsk region, the SMM recorded more ceasere violations[1], including 640 explosions, compared with the previous reporting period (about 200 explosions).
  • Daily Report 122/2020 23 May 20201 Summary

    Daily Report 122/2020 23 May 20201 Summary

    - 1 - Daily Report 122/2020 23 May 20201 Summary Compared with the previous reporting period, the Mission recorded more ceasefire violations in both Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Small-arms fire was assessed as directed at SMM mini-UAVs near Petrivske and Vesela Hora, where bullets also flew over SMM members. The SMM followed up on reports of a man injured due to shelling in Shyroka Balka on 9 April, Donetsk region. Members of the armed formations continued to deny the Mission passage at checkpoints along official crossing routes in Donetsk and Luhansk regions.* The SMM saw craters, assessed as recent, near residential houses in Staromykhailivka, Donetsk region. It continued monitoring the disengagement areas near Stanytsia Luhanska, Zolote and Petrivske. It recorded ceasefire violations inside the disengagement area near Petrivske and spotted during evening hours a person at a former position of the Ukrainian Armed Forces inside the disengagement area near Zolote. It saw mines, including some for the first time, near Maiorsk and Petrivske and in Zaitseve, Holmivskyi, and Staromykhailivka. The Mission continued following up on measures taken amid the COVID-19 outbreak, including at entry-exit checkpoints and their corresponding checkpoints in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The SMM’s freedom of movement continued to be restricted.* 1 Based on information from the Monitoring Teams as of 19:30, 22 May 2020. All times are in Eastern European Summer Time. - 2 - Ceasefire violations 2 Number of recorded ceasefire violations 3 Number of recorded explosions4 2 For a complete breakdown of ceasefire violations, please see the annexed table. During the reporting period, the SMM camera in Petrivske was not operational.
  • Vulnerabilities

    Vulnerabilities

    UKRAINE Capacity & Vulnerability Assessment Toretsk Municipality, Government Controlled Area November-December 2018 Introduction Methodology Armed conflict between the forces of the significantly. The assessment began with a secondary The populations of interest in this study are: Government of Ukraine (GoU) and opposition data review in order to identify the main internally displaced persons (IDPs), non- This Capacity and Vulnerability Assessment groups in the territory of Donbas will enter its service providers in the raion. REACH used displaced populations and service providers (CVA) monitors and analyses the challenges sixth year in 2019. The conflict is concentrated geospatial data from the main mapping in Toretsk Municipality. The research used identified during the Area-Based Assessment around the contact line separating the services in Ukraine to map the settlements of a stratified random sample with four strata (ABA) of July 20173. The key issues identified government controlled area (GCA) from the assessed area and identify the locations (Table 1). by the ABA of Toretsk were distance, cost of non-government controlled area (NGCA) of of service providers and catchement areas of transport and security risks while accessing The HH survey component of primary Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.1 these providers. services. Using a network approach, this study data collection included 769 in-person HH The Municipality of Toretsk, officially known as also maps the basic service delivery capacities Primary data collection was conducted from interviews across settlements of Toretsk the Toretsk City Council2, is located along the at the facility level and access to services at 30th Nov – 14th Dec 2018, and included key Municipality located in the GCA.
  • UKRAINE: the FORGOTTEN Serious Human Rights Violations

    UKRAINE: the FORGOTTEN Serious Human Rights Violations

    UKRAINE: THE FORGOTTEN Serious human rights violations Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. Article 2: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty. Article 3: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. Article 4: No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms. Article 5: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, Août 2014 Introduction 2 I - Chronology of events 2 II - Human rights violations 3 1. Shots fired against non-military targets and lack of protection of civilians 3 2. Abductions and torture: the escalation of terror 4 3. Violations of freedom of information and speech 8 4. Violation of minority rights 10 5. The fight against impunity: numerous obstacles 11 III - Recommendations 13 Introduction The human rights situation in Ukraine is alarming. Civilians are caught in the conflict between the Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian armed groups mainly in the East of the country.