Ex-major of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Yury Baturin in July 2014 served as commander of the military unit of the A-1215 anti-aircraft missile forces near Kharkov. The officer told in an exclusive interview with the “Zvezda” TV channel that he received all information about the air situation in the region. On the day of the crash of the MH17 flight Baturin personally saw that passenger Boeing on the indicators.
According to the former officer of the Armed Forces, a few days after the crash, servicemen arrived at the command post near Kharkov, where they were engaged in relocating the 156th anti-aircraft missile regiment to the area of the village of Zaroshchenskoye. Baturin explains that the column drove into its part, because it was a convenient transit point. In the composition of the equipment there was the Buk SAM. The ex-major of the AFU said that after that he compared the facts and realized that the mark of the “Boeing” MH17 on the radar screen “disappeared in the area of the anti-aircraft guided missile of the Buk anti-aircraft missile system, which includes the point of standing “the village of Zaroshchenskoe.”
According to Baturin, Boeing was downed by a rocket from the territory of Ukraine. Baturin’s testimony coincides with the conclusions of the commission of the Almaz-Antey Concern, whose experts conducted several experiments to establish the true picture of the tragedy. “Almaz-Antei” in the autumn of 2016 named the approximate point of launching of “Buk” village of Zaroshchenskoye and even named the type of the rocket – 9M38. Such ammunition has not been produced since 1999 and is in the arsenal of the AFU.
According to the former military officer Yuri Baturin, he decided to resign from the Ukrainian army and move to Russia after the MH17 tragedy. He added that he was responsible for every word he said and only told what he knew. Now the ex-major of AFU lives in Russia.
The passenger plane Boeing 777 of Malaysia Airlines, which operated MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, crashed on July 17, 2014 in the east of the Donetsk region. As a result of the crash, 283 passengers and 15 crew members were killed.