Here an subtle but strong example : http://www.sott.net/article/302911-Sott-Exclusive-Full-unedi...
Further, to even entertain this question, you have to believe that Ukraine positioned BUK launchers in the most heavily contested part of the country, in areas which were apparently held by rebels just weeks earlier.
This does not look like a serious controversy. The rebels shot the plane down.
Only the Russian side has these BUKs. One of the key findings is which specific warhead version was used. The report doesn't spell out who did it, it does however conclude that a BUK missile from the Russian military shot down the plane. That BUK may have been stolen or on holiday in eastern Ukraine.
But when trying to use logic here, I don't see why would Russia shoot the plane. They had nothing to gain. Ukraine? I don't know, I refuse to believe they would deliberately kill hundreds for some advantage. My bet is on the rebels who did it mistakenly. The question is whose BUK they used. One provided by Russia or one taken from an abandoned Ukrainian base.
Your earlier comment parroted a line that is apparently popular in the Russian media, that Russia no longer uses the 9M38M1 SAM. But that missile is distinctive, and can been seen in recent photographs at Russian military installations.
I didn't say that Russia shot down MH17. I said that if they're claiming not to use that missile, they're lying. Why? What a weird thing to lie about, that's so easily falsifiable.
Nevertheless he lied about it and his ratings in Russia did not even suffer from it.
What we should remember here is that "who did it" in this matter is more a matter of who was in command and who provided the hardware, rather than who pushed the button.
This is the most likely hypothesis but there are others. Apart from the craft being downed by Ukraine (Nothing in the report points in that direction), another hypothesis one would be actual Russian personnel, rather than Ukrainian separatists, operating from inside Donetsk. That would be hugely controversial, but hard to prove.
I'm sure there are a few of these still around here and there, but no one is lying about the production stop that happened 16 years ago (that can be verified many ways).
Those pictures are sourced from - http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/19731
And they are still up.
It's not much of proof of anything.
As far as the other 2 whole pictures at parades, etc, well, that's proof of itself that these missile models are dwindling in numbers and are a rare sight.
For every 1 of these decommissioned missiles that Russia still posses, Ukraine probably has 100 (considering it's always been a weapons depot for this type of older Russian and Soviet-era gear).
Nobody forced in anyone in Russia to make the easily falsified claim that they didn't have any 9M38M1 missiles. The only reason it's interesting to establish that they did is that it harms an alibi they weren't forced to offer.
The Dutch report, and a lot of other open-source evidence, makes it pretty unlikely that the Ukranians launched the missile. This is a missile system that consists of several vehicles, one of which is a giant lumbering missile launcher. The missile was launched within an 100km^2 firmly controlled by the separatists. The Ukranian military didn't spirit a missile launcher convoy to a wheat field just a few km south of Snizhne --- a town that Ukraine was bombing --- spectacularly down a jetliner, and then somehow spirit that convoy back to Ukranian-held territory. That is not a reasonable narrative.
I don't see any serious arguments that this was anything other than a tragic accident. No matter who launched the missile, we're all pretty sure they didn't mean to shoot down MH17. The subtext behind Russia's involvement is that they set up a barely-organized irregular separatist militia with a weapons system that was easily capable of shooting down airliners.
The only thing I've seen conclusively is the size of the anti-Russian rederick. Which has been of such giant proportions that less than 2 hours after the crash happened, it was made out to be all Putin's fault, and every event after was spinned that way (example - Keiv was preventing the OSCE access to the area, yet media coverage claimed it was the Rebels).
How is that even logical?
These are discontinued older model BUK missiles.
Meaning only a place like Ukraine would have them in any significant numbers.
It's possible that Ukrainian forces or someone else had a conspiracy to frame the rebels (if you have a good conspiracy theory, Russian propaganda would love to hear it). But this is very unlikely as it's a high-risk, low pay-off strategy and even Russian leaders are usually not that evil or stupid.
At the time, Kiev was complaining that Russia was sending out spy planes into its territory.
Knowing the state of the Ukrainian military, to me it's much more likely that they mistaken the plane for something it was not and shot it down.
Does anybody have an objective news sources regarding Ukraine?
Even the link above looks like Russian propaganda.
http://www.osce.org/ukraine-smm OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine. Here's the SMM's mandate:
The monitors are mandated to contribute to reducing tensions and to help
foster peace, stability and security. The Mission engages with
authorities at all levels, as well as civil society, ethnic and
religious groups and local communities to facilitate dialogue on the
ground. The Mission will gather information and report on the security
situation, establish and report facts in response to specific incidents,
including those concerning alleged violations of fundamental OSCE
principles.
http://www.osce.org/ukraine OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine
And here are the daily updates from the Special Monitoring Mission: http://www.osce.org/ukraine-smm/daily-updates
http://www.osce.org/who And to help you judge the OCSE for yourself, here's their about page. (There are 57 particpating states, including Russia, USA and Ukraine)