Key Figure in Boeing Shootdown Identified as Deputy Head of FSB Border Service

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 28 – Just as some leaders seek to distract attention from their old lies by telling new ones, so the Putin regime regularly commits new crimes so that those who are investigating old ones are often viewed as cranks concerned about what some view as a distant and unimportant past that everyone needs to “look beyond.”

            In many respects, that is what has happened to investigations into Russian involvement in the July 2014 shooting down of the Malaysian jetliner over Ukraine, an event that in the minds of some has been eclipsed by Moscow actions like the poisoning of the Skripals in Great Britain or the attempted poisoning more recently of the mayor of Prague.

            But documenting Kremlin malfeasance regardless of its date remains important, and the world owes a debt of gratitude to researchers at The Insider and Bellingcat for documenting to a near certainty that FSB Lt.Gen. Andrey Burlak, deputy head of the Russian Border Service, was directly involved in the Malaysian plane case.

            Hitherto, he had been hidden behind the name “Vladimir Ivanovich” in the documents that had been prepared by the Joint Investigation Group that has been looking into the shootdown. But an examination of telephone and travel records shows he and his colleagues were actively involved in this affair (theins.ru/politika/216447).

                As students of conspiracies know, it is important to build from the outside to the center lest those who organized the conspiracy escape being held responsible while their underlings take the rap. The identification of Burlak and his role in supplying heavy weapons to pro-Moscow forces before the shootdown is an important step in that process.