Russian weapons manufacturer says the Dutch Safety Board ‘falsified’ its MH17 field research

Russia’s air-defense systems manufacturer Almaz-Antey, which manufactures Buk missiles, has accused international investigators of "falsifying" its research on the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. The weapons company published these accusations on its website earlier today.

Almaz-Antey says the Dutch Safety Board isn't telling the truth when it claims (on page 146 of its final report on MH17) that its conclusions about the Buk missile's likely launch site correspond to Alma-Antey's own calculations.

The weapons company calls the Dutch Safety Board's tactics "an impressive example of dishonestly using our work."

According to Almaz-Antey, the DSB's report on MH17 uses one of the company's maps out of context to support its theory about the likely launch site for the missile that brought down the plane. Almaz-Antey says it merely created these maps when running tests to weigh the possibility that the Buk missile was fired from an area southeast of Torez (in rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine). The results of this experiment, the company says, "convincingly refuted" the idea that the rocket was launched from this area, though the DSB's report suggests the opposite.

The Russian manufacturer of the Buk missiles says its experiments and research into the MH17 crash discredit all the Dutch Safety Board's theories about likely launch sites.

The results of our second-stage field tests, conducted on October 7, 2015, clearly demonstrate the inaccuracy of the version of events presented by the international commission, which says the missile was fired from an area in Snezhnoe carrying a 9M38M1 warhead.

• According to the Dutch Safety Board's final report, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was brought down on July 17, 2014, by a missile fired from a "Buk" anti-aircraft system. DSB chairman Tjibbe Joustra said an additional investigation would be necessary to determine the exact location from which the rocket was launched. Joustra said such an investigation falls outside the DSB's current mandate. Joustra also faulted Ukrainian officials for failing to close the airspace over eastern Ukraine.
• Russia’s air-defense systems manufacturer Almaz-Antei, which manufactures Buk missiles, has conducted two studies of its own, reaching conclusions that differ from the DSB's findings.
• See also: *Bellingcat’s Eliot Higgins dissects the MH17 reports: Meduza speaks to the open-source research guru about reports by the Dutch Safety Board and Almaz-Antey*