MOSCOW--When investigators eventually sort through the wreckage
to determine why Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down, they
will have to consider the plane's tragic trajectory: straight over
the center of some of the hottest fighting in eastern Ukraine,
where air power had begun playing a crucial role on the
battlefield.
The plane entered that dangerous zone just hours after rebels
had gotten their hands on an antiaircraft missile system
sophisticated enough to take down a plane cruising at 33,000 feet,
U.S. and Ukrainian officials say. That missile system, the Buk,
known in the West as the SA-11 or Gadfly, is particularly inept on
its own at distinguishing a civilian aircraft from a military one,
according to military experts.
Russia says Ukraine, not rebels, downed the Malaysian flight
with a Buk missile from its own arsenal, or in an air-to-air
engagement with a Ukrainian fighter jet. The U.S., citing Ukrainian
evidence that the missile battery and its crew were brought over
the border from Russia, say the incident illustrates the widening
danger of Moscow's willful proliferation of weapons in the
Ukrainian battle zone.
The path of the Malaysia Airlines flight took it directly over a
stretch of the Russia-Ukraine border near the town of Snizhne,
where fighting had raged for weeks. The territory was critical for
both sides, because Ukrainian troops had effectively cut off rebels
from Russia by seizing and holding a thin strip of territory along
that border.
Air power has become a factor tipping the war in Ukraine's favor
in recent weeks, not only as a means to strike rebel positions, but
also to spot targets for artillery and missiles. Artillery barrages
have been a vital tool for the Ukrainian military in making gains
against separatists forces, a U.S. official said: "Not the only
tool, but an important one." In general, aerial observation can
dramatically improve the accuracy of effectiveness of long-range
artillery, he said.
The rebels have no air force, although Ukrainian officials say
they have been operating some drones. Intercepted radio
transmissions released by the Ukrainian government have shown
rebels prior to the downing of the Malaysian flight were having
trouble using their own artillery effectively because they didn't
have forward observers for their guns. Lately, rebels have tried to
even the score by acquiring antiaircraft weapons that can reach to
higher altitudes.
In early fighting, rebels were armed with primitive
point-and-shoot antiaircraft guns. But in May Ukrainian officials
noted the appearance of shoulder-launched rocket systems, which the
rebels used to take down helicopters and low-flying planes.
But earlier this month a video of a rebel column of military
hardware in the city of Donetsk included several SA-13 Gophers, an
infra-red tactical-level guided missile system that could take down
planes as high as 13,000 feet. Ukrainian officials began reporting
the loss of some higher-flying aircraft, such as fighter jets and
Antonov cargo planes after the appearance of SA-13s.
Ukraine continues to lose lower-flying ground attack aircraft to
missiles launched by the rebels. On Wednesday, the Ukraine military
reported that two ground attack Su-25s were shot down at 17,000
feet not far from the Flight 17 crash site.
For reconnaissance flights, analysts say the Ukrainians probably
tried sending their planes higher and out of reach of the rebel
antiaircraft systems. The delivery of the Buk system appears to
have been a Kremlin gambit to give rebels a chance to shoot down
the highest-possible planes that the Ukrainians could fly over
them. A question now is why its crew unleashed a missile against a
civilian aircraft.
Military experts say the Buk is ideally deployed as just one
component of a wider antiaircraft system, since it doesn't have the
capabilities to search the skies over a wide area. Doug Richardson,
editor of IHS Jane's Missiles & Rockets, said that while the
Buk operating alone can identify a friendly aircraft, it can't
distinguish between enemy or neutral ones.
Recordings of allegedly intercepted telephone conversations
released in recent days by the Ukrainian security services suggest
that rebel crews operating the Buks were concerned about artillery
strikes--and relieved that the Buks had been delivered to them.
About seven hours before the Malaysia flight fell from the sky,
Ukraine's security service said, it intercepted a phone call from a
pro-Russia militant to a rebel commander. According to the
recording, the rebel called the Buk "a beauty" that he had just
brought from across the Russian border on a flatbed truck. The
missile system, he said, came with a crew to operate it, according
to the recording.
Ukraine's security service identified the rebel commander as a
former Russian military officer, Sergei Petrovsky. The caller told
Mr. Petrovsky that "we need to unload it somewhere and hide it,"
according to the recording.
Mr. Petrovsky told him to rendezvous with an armored column that
would escort the system outside the city. Within two hours, it had
been deployed, Ukraine security officials said.
Shortly after issuing orders to deploy the system, Mr. Petrovsky
complained to another rebel commander about the "constant"
Ukrainian artillery fire, saying "only now there is a pause."
When asked why he didn't fire back with their own Grad system,
Mr. Petrovsky replied: "The thing is that we have a Grad, but don't
have a spotter, firstly," according to the released recording.
"Thank God, today Buk M arrived," he is heard saying on the
recording. "It has become a little bit easier."
Write to Alan Cullison at alan.cullison@wsj.com
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