Transcripts For CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20240622

That nobody useless into and case the agreement falls apart and we have lots of cases where that is an example appeared north korea and another example of the Different Levels of the iraq issue in the bush and obama in frustration. Obama in many ways executed the drawdown plan but the seniorlevel engagement nobody watched the issue were a few years. This matters a lot. Also another example is the clayton Bush Al Qaeda here this is a problem in the u. S. Government we have and have to deal with. I just end i just had to point out one other thing. We talk about risk of the p5 1 die. The iranian have cheated on their treaty obligations for 30 odd years. It is not at all outside of their capacity to cheat intentionally, have somebody do some and theyre not supposed to do and become a bigger problem. A variety of things that never inside that can make the deal fall apart too. Theres to be noted we were thinking more about her own perspective but certainly we have to make sure they do their part. That is heart of our concern would like to express its quite obvious. There will be problems. This is a longterm agreement and there will be disputes and the mechanisms available both a continued judgment Political Leadership in good faith efforts on the part of the radiance that we dont have a major blowup along the way. We are almost out of time. I want to see if theres one more quick question we can answer and then we are closing. Wide awake at go with this gentleman on the right side. Right there. Your microphone is right in front of you. Jonas of the minister council. I was actually jessica is stumbling block the second one on the sanctions with the agreement that if anything consisted that the u. S. State and local level with the federal government to do whatever it can. Wonder if that could be possible with the local state or amendment would put in their own irans sanctions. There are state and locals. Primarily they deal with iran that could be and are considered to be sanction than people who come up with the idea as well as the radiance. Frankly under our system of government there are limitations to what the federal government can do. The language has no commitment on the part of the United States federal government to abandon Investment Strategies and things like that. There are laws on the book and in the federal system that basically gave cover to divestment and say it is something state and local officials not to be able to do. I think you can see some attempt to modify that. More broadly theres two things. One is a general statement of advocacy of the divestment decision inconsistent with the terms of the deal are not helpful under the foreignpolicy authorities that there should be the supremacy clause should grant that to the federal government and they may not do think inconsistent. Theres a bigger concern about overuse by federal authorities by local jurisdictions including sanctions that may be suspended. But this is intended to save your financial regulator and the federal government has suspended a sanction, this covers that too. What this may set up is the legal challenge at the federal state and local level to do at particular cases if the iranians were to complain a particular case is inconsistent with the deal. We just have to see how the courts will deal with that if and when that comes out. Thanks. As we said, it is complex. We hope will clarify a good read about how the agreement is supposed to work, what is that taken the other considerations down the road and also some insights as to why so many believe this is unbalanced in the u. S. National security interest and a major step forward for the Nuclear Nonproliferation at first especially the worlds most volatile region in the middle east. I want to thank you for coming today and in our audience on cspan had more than anything is because for the great presentations, the transcript of it event is going to be on the Arms Control Association website within a couple days. There is more information about the agreement, irans program and the efforts to get to this point. Please join me in a round of applause for our great beakers today. [applause] and we are adjourned. Thank you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] you know i think if you go back to earlier technologies like railroad and the marble telephone monopoly. Those are regulated as common carriers radio leaders that they set terms rules and we dont know what happened. Heres innovation and railroads and in telephonetelephone s until they were all deregulated and not a common carrier statutes essentially adopted by congress that is so clear innovation was being suppressed in the u. S. Is falling behind. That was the backdrop for the bipartisan consensus of the 1990s that the internet was going to be different. This is during the clinton administration, a clear consensus democrats and republicans that unlike the earlier technologies, the internet was going to be approachable. Investigative journalist or near a talk about their findings in the Malaysia Airlines flight mh17 and Eastern Ukraine about a year ago. 289 passengers and crew were killed in a russianmade missile launcher that denial and hindering of the efforts and how this has impacted the russian ukraine conflict. This is just over two hours. And from current teeth. We are here to talk about the shoot down of malaysian airliner 17 on july 17 last year. I remember that day vividly because within 20 minutes of the shoot down of the airliner, i saw something in the media that fsb colonel scowcroft at some thing of announcing to requote unquote military plane. There were no reports of the shootdown and it is pretty clear what happened. I was in berlin a week and a half after that and i learned a new phrase as i was preparing to go to berlin which meant people who understood sympathetically to tim and his policies which is something that characterized the german political system and society pretty much through the summer before and after the summer of 2014. Our conversations with germans at the time were told we feel the residue of putin as we discussed the kremlin aggression in east of ukraine. But the official, someone who had worked with in moscow in the mid80s said to me the german public was becoming quite concerned about what was going on surrounding the remains of the airline. The reports if you recall of the looting of the bodies. The bodies were left in place for days and days and weeks. She said to me, this is how the authorities there, the folks in charge in the russian occupied parts of Eastern Ukraine, that is how they treat their dad, how do they treat their living . That in a phrase highlight how the shootdown of mh17 was a turning point in the war of ideas in the words understanding in europe about the kremlin led aggression and ukraine d. Thats the only point i wanted to make. I will introduce now the lady who will moderate todays events. My first recall countering her not personally but i think she wrote the new republic i believe she has also been then worked for foreignpolicy and the new yorker in her article in the columbia journal review washington post, and forwards. Thank you for coming this morning. Thank you for inviting me to participate in this event. I think we cannot remember where we were a year ago and i think we are all having a similar feeling this morning that its hard to believe that its only been a year. The first images that we saw that day were horrifying. Bodies down on the village that authority done part of an active war zone in the news just grew on the more horrifying and metal in the crime scene. A year later the situation seemed like a game changer at the time that something so horrible and seemingly random couldnt change the course of events in the conflict in ukraine and a year later the situation does that profoundly different. I would argue the event help shape european resolve to get behind more robust sanctions and that couples with precipitous economic decline and russia angrily froze the conflict in place. Russia was willing and ready to go further in Eastern Ukraine to maybe half the land route to crimea which was finding difficult to supply and instead we have this strange cant lead this no mans land. Nobody seems to want this region anymore and i feel like the way the conflict stands in ukraine can be traced back to the morning one year ago when these were people flying home are on vacation which is shot out of the sky. It has been as we all know part of a fight over basic facts and what happened and we will hear from speakers today whose work and diligence has tried to keep people focused on what her actual facts, actual images to try to keep the narrative focused on what happened rather than by dean of the waters and the devolution into an epistemological gray zone, no mans land. Without further ado. Good morning. It is a real honor to be here today alongside. My name is iggy ostanin with bellingcat. We been doing some investigation into mh17 and i would like to talk about one of the central things we were to find and reported on last year. On the slide you will be able to see a book Missile System outside of the 17th of july last year and this was a starting point for something ive worked on last year as well, something we use in our investigation. When numerous images and videos taken by local people in the area and this occupied separatist controlled territory in ukraine geology being these images and videos being able to compare location with open sources like google street view identifies the controlled territory and also meant we could prove the separatists had a look on that particular day. Theres also a video produced by the sbu that showed a book Missile System with at least one missile missing the day after the attack seemingly returning back to russia. In september last year i started doing some investigation that would later evolve into a report actively produce privilege of contributors about how it was able to discover the book that showed down had actually come from russia in a specific military unit to russia. This is one of the images i was able to find by searching for things like book in russian and what it shows at the end of june last year there was a large military vehicles traveling places like story ooscar o and the column had books in it and there was a quite interesting image to find because by narrowing down that particular time frame with more and more videos showing the same thing in different areas there was possible to establish a Chronological Order of the locations. This led me to find a particular interesting video that was filmed by local person and facebook in june last year and is quite interesting because there is a book similar to what weve seen in the paris march imaging. There is a remnant quite similar to what weve seen and from what we know, the bush military had been sending military equipment into ukraine with numbers identifying. This led me to find this particular advantage which was a really important highresolution image that it basically comes from mr. Graham uploaded by a local joe showing the book of the image 17 that was uploaded unwittingly by somebody weeks before the attack had taken place. So its possible to go make comparisons from their peers on the last to see the image from russia in june. On the right you see the image from outside on the 17th of july. And im numerous marketing that wasnt just a remnant of a number. It was actually an entire set of identifying features that shows this was the same book. This is irrefutable evidence that came from russia. Alongside this analyzing the vehicles column was particularly useful because it led to a particular unit and russia that use the same area code. It was actually possible to go and find a russian Facebook Page for russian soldiers from particular military units, the 55th birthday and look for the profiles of the soldiers and it was forcible than to get a confirmation. Matching license plates of the vehicle was seen traveling towards ukraine and they had themselves. This was the pages that come from. This is a really importantly because it had actually shown that originated from kursk which was also verified by other things. For example, the first chronologically ordered video i was able to uncover was taken outside. It was possible to look at certain servicemen and analyzing the jays do show the link between that unit and the image 17. And so the Bellingcat Team, we started looking at all of the similarities in the way it was ordered, the damage to the book is basically over the tracks of the book and able to come for a 100 the same vehicle. We tried to use other things as well. This is an image from a Russian Forum for a wide the relatives of russian soldiers and the post relating to somebody and saying it was being sent towards ukraine to the russian border and this itself had meant we were able to uncover more videos. For example, go in there at that time. These are a number of Different Things that could verify they had traveled towards ukraine at that time weeks before mh17 was shut down. As well as that i looking closely it was impossible to go find images from within the column by soldiers from the union and gain the information to take place and actually happening. In the end we could essentially build out what had happened and what took place and map out the exact route taken by the convoy and this in turn allowed a two then look at the dates after the attack and find some movement of exactly the same units going back to the unit after the attack had taken place. You know and i feel tremendously privileged to have worked with the Bellingcat Team to uncover this. Im proud to present this work today and i hope those of you who havent seen it will see the image produced and hopefully this will then add to the narrative of what happened on the day. Thank you so much. [applause] thank you so much. Give us one second we are beaming and sent to from berlin but has put out the other hi david. We are on. How are you . Thank you for inviting me. First of all i would like to explain something about what we were trying to do a corrective. Corrective is a nonprofit investigative newsroom funded by a German Foundation that was created as part of the legacy of the founders so what we need to do our investigations in the Public Interest. We do stories on their something important to say. We want to do stories where the readers will say i didnt know that. We try to create a positive impact for change. So when we started the story, we had to look what we can say that would be in the Public Interest and we thought this was a story that could be done in the Public Interest because there was a war going on in Eastern Ukraine and part of it was accompanied by award in which the mh17 disaster played an important role. We thought what we should try and do his fact check the nation and try to create or put together information that people could rely on. So we started reviewing statements initially by the russian government, the ukraine government and the netherlands investigators, the u. S. Government nato German Government of courses based in germany. Initially we looked for facts that everybody agreed on. One of the facts that everybody surprisingly enough agreed not was it that was shot down by ground air missile that had to be a type of missile that was initially in the soviet union and russia and everybody, the u. S. Government said it had to be russian government said with the ground air missile and Ukrainian Government saying everybody seemed to agree on that. So we went looking for different information. But we also discovered something very strange in our investigation and ap who you just heard is part of that because we realize there is somebody else we have to keep Fact Checking and datasets x. For us that is very strange because we had a whole bunch of countries or government institutions with very strong reputation for novice suddenly realize they have to be looking at a barely new internet website called bellingcat. To our astonishment we discovered the information bellingcat was putting out there was really to a large degree more useful than many governments because they were making that data very transparent so anybody themselves could go check it. One of the first things i did was went and visited a key in the netherlands and i said to him how are you putting this together . How can i believe you . He pulled out his tablet and conjured up a keyboard and started doing the different stuff he was doing to put his information together. I very quickly realized they had to taken seriously. We actually put them on the same path as though with all of these other institutions and decided one of the problems is the a weakness is that ismail and people are generally prone to say anything that appears on the internet you have to send out. We decided we would start Fact Checking. We began to look at what everybody was saying. We saw the russian government was saying first of all they put out two different versions of the attack. They said it could end by a book missile fired by ukrainians or could have been done by an air missile. The two versions basically exclude one another. In essence what we felt they were saying is we dont know. The americans said it was a book missile, but they didnt say how they knew that. They just said they had intelligence information that they believed in. This doesnt help the discussion because for a lot of people they said okay we would like to fact check ourselves. So we began to try and look at other sources of information we could use to fact check it. We did some of the similar stuff to what he was telling you about. We ended up downloading entire websites come in the social media website of the 56 air per grade and we just downloaded the entire website. We collected the profiles of as many soldiers as they could. We put them into a database which included the email address is and some members of the soldiers so they could call them an email them because we thought that was something we could do to add value to the story other people werent doing. We also began looking at the military logic of running the systems and that was something we thought was missing from the discussion. Why are the missiles there . We talk to military experts aircraft investigators, air Traffic Controllers satellite pictures and creating a map of the locations and they got ready to go visit the location. One of the things the military experts were telling us his book missiles basically only have one function that is to protect russian tanks. They said russian tanks dont go anywhere without books. I decided to call the German Ministry of defense and asked them what they thought about that. The spokesman when i got on the phone said you dont need to tell me this. I said why not. He said i am an officer Lieutenant Colonel in the tank originally. He said we dont go anywhere without our air defense either. It is a basic rule of the military combat strategy that tanks cant protect themselves unless they have ground to air missiles that can take with them. We began looking at that and what are their strengths in one of the things we learned is the russian version not able to differentiate between friendly aircraft and enemy aircraft except for any unit that is the Russian Military aircraft was friendly and anything that is that whether civilian or an enemy military, they all look the same. Air Traffic Controllers said when they start work each day they go into a room and a standard three to five minute trying to get a threedimensional image of the sky around them and when they had the pictures they say to the person in front of them they say okay ive got it and he would take over. When we talk to book operators, people have been trained in the soviet union. People who have been trained in ukraine said they only have 42nd to get us this picture because within 40 seconds you can beat the radar system on for more than 40 seconds because the enemy can see your precise location and its going to be destroyed. They began to tell us about the wild west where you have the airplane appear in a tank on the bottom. Both of them know theyre looking at each other. Both of them at the exact same location and whoever shoots first has a much better chance of surviving. So you have a situation with little time where you have opposing interests. Both groups want to survive the tank operators for the book operators want to survive in there is very little time to make a decision. We came to the conclusion that this is one of the big goblins that you have a system that was enabled to clearly differentiate between civilian planes and looks like enemy plane. You have people who have to make a decision quickly or they themselves would die. We came to the conclusion that a mistake like this was bound to happen at some point whether it would have been within three weeks before for five weeks after we didnt know. It was in a situation that was prone to run into lead to a disaster at some point. And we started looking at how does russia make decisions as far as books were concerned. We ended up having to look at this when youre talking to soldiers in the unit and other people because we were phoning people from the air defense per grade and talking to people and writing them. We heard these decisions whether to file a book missile is only made by officers. That the people who run the systems have four years at a Military College basically engineers and normal soldiers are not allowed. One person said to less he had four months of training before he was even allowed to drive the truck that pulls the systems around. So these very technical systems and also the teams that run the systems have to work closely together. You have different units. You have a ramp mounted on the back of the train. Radar system mounted on the back of the tank. And an assortment of other trucks and vehicles. Theyll have to coordinate and operate together. They have to be in constant practice. This is in the neck cavity that could be outsourced to a bunch of separatist fighters who havent done this who havent been to a Technical University and the training constantly for mind using the system. People were saying that a Team Dedicated to defending tanks have been training for years to do this and know how to do it and you know that tanks are expensive, the lives of their soldiers are at stake and youre not going to outsource that to people who dont have the training, dont know how to operate in may decide this is tuesday and id rather go visit my motherinlaw didnt be there. This is something you dont outsource. Often the mission that tanks are trying to serve are important to the general sending people into the war zone. We were able to comfortably conclude that this operation could only have been run by regular soldiers and when we were Fact Checking what bellingcat was doing and looking at other information that we were finding also the information to various governments. For example, the Ukrainian Government and russian government both agreed the platform ap was showing a few minutes ago were actually in the region. They disagreed the exact location but 30 kilometers that this ramp was within the region and we went to the locations and were able to determine the location by bellingcat is actually correct. We also talk to separatist leaders who told us that they needed air Defense Systems because of fighting that was going on there. The Ukrainian Government had put out information that i have destroyed tanks a couple days before and one of the separatist commanders whose interview was posted on the website said they had to put the air defense to the north and the west of sheepish name because russia was to the south and to the east. We didnt need any defense they are. We went to the north and to the east and we found a little group of houses about 60 houses they are. The town was physically traumatized. Everybody in this town knew what had happened and that the missile had been launched from there. We talked to a lot of people who gave us bits and pieces of upward going on. We pieced it together and found other people who are able to tell us a lot more than they saw an object flying past them to look like an airplane didnt have any windows and a bunch of other things they were telling us. One person was able to say this was the missile that destroyed mh17. We also posted this interview on our website so people can look in the exactly what he was singing. We also found one of the civilian separatist leaders who basically took us inside the mind of the person who he said was firing the missile. He said this was the ukrainian firing. The closer you got to the launch site the more separatist leaders said it was a ground to air missile. Nobody within 10 kilometers would say it was the air missile because everybody knew. The one civilian leaders said the soldiers getting their was frightened. He only had a few seconds to make a decision. Is it an animate is it not an enemy. As a friend, isnt so and finally he decided he had to shoot at any launch the missile. He claimed this was the ukrainian soldier who was doing this. The leader would have a conversation with ukrainians soldier. He was in a position because he was one of the senior civilian people in the area to have said i want to report what exactly happened. We never got to the bottom of whether his story is true, but it fit in with what the military people were saying and what they thought had happened. Im not going to go into all of this stuff if he was talking about. They basically let the sights and sounds of what he was saying about them was true. We also looked at other sites the russian government was talking about and found, for example it was launched from the air or at latest the launch pads where they are. We talked to the people they are that nobody there had actually seen with the russians reported was there. So what we tried to do was get feet on the ground to go talk to people as much as possible to talk to people outside of the ukrainian, but also in the ukraine twopiece is to gather as much as possible. And then we tried to put our information not carrots is possible. If you go to her website you can see a great majority of the information is available to be downloaded. Pictures, videos, audio all they are for people who want to fact check us. We invite anybody who wants to put the exact address their own where we have found this. Anybody else can go there and talk to people like we did. That is the way you have to verify what is going on. I think i will finish up here. Thank you for listening. Thank you for joining us all the way from berlin. I would also say a few words about why these particular groups are the other ones invited here today. I think a great example of how journalism Investigative Journalism could work together. These reports are available to pick up right outside. They were able to geolocate the positions of the launched chase the movement and what correct v was able to send people on the ground and these reports together provide incredibly compelling elements of what happened on the ground and who was behind amid 17 shoot down mh17 shoot down. How i would like to ask michael spokesperson for the osc on the First Respondent on the ground last year and i would like to invite all of you watch an of you watching online to join the conversation with a show ukraine. Michael, with that please. Thank you for the kind introduction. I would like to thank advisors are invited is today. Especially on a day like today. I also want to start out by taking people to pay tribute to the families of the big guns. Just a few minutes ago, the mission to ukraine did come to a standstill. We took a moment of silence at 4 20 p. M. 9 20 a. M. Here to commemorate the 298 also in a Statement Today issued by our chief monitor ambassador alba khan has said the tragedy and its allies of 298 people in the most horrific manner and left a deep scar among their loved ones in the netherlands, malaysia australia and all of the world. This is a stark reminder of the heavy toll and a member of the victims will stay with the Monitoring Mission and remind all of us of our important task to contribute to normalizing the situation in ukraine. We are just going a positive moment and run three or four minutes of the video from Canadian Broadcasting Corporation done by a dear friend and one of canadas best investigative journalists is one of the first on the scene on july 17th and 18th. It is a good letter to the work of special monetary mission did. Ill be right back after the video. The wreckage was still smoldering in a small team got there. Michael bociurkiw, ukrainian canadian is thrust into the heart of the disaster to observe and report back to the countries including canada but the team ended up doing much more. No other officials arrived four days. Michael bociurkiw and alexander as the cannot and alexander became the icelanders of the world. We crossed paths many times. We finally found it, place and time to reflect. Michael, you have been here and not of the site daily for the last 10 days. What stands out for you amongst your observations about what happened . What really hits you is how peoples lives have been tragically and abruptly interrupted. There are a lot of people on the plane on their way to vacation. The other day i found a piece of literature that looks like it was being carried through melbourne. The most bad thing i saw was a note written by some into themselves on the plane or on their way to the plaintiffs is one of the things i want to do is have a good vacation and not blow my budget but yet have a good time. It is stuff like that that really stays with you. If i can say on a personal level, we have become almost intimately familiar. We have looked closeup. We are able to notice the differences paid for example on the cockpit scene that has been the most stark in terms of how it has changed. When we first arrived there again but cockpit appears to have slammed down into her thing is pretty much intact. Over the days we had they not spread out. Day two there were men in uniform packing through with a power saw. It could have been on active body recovery. Reader note. In then it has been spread out even more. The other striking thing when we arrived here today after arrived here the day after, there were a lot of hotties flying bear. It was a horrifying thing. No one was sure who was in control of their bodies left in the fields too long. Finally they were collected and placed in refrigerated train cars for tranfour. It was difficult but the train was cold and lonely. I think only three of them came. They did the best they could to increase the level of dignity. That was very difficult. The one thing that has powered us through this is knowing we are doing this for the families. In this complex zone or anything that happens anything we could do to provide a semblance of order. That is not only the bodies of the loved ones but that the documents get back and now its really important to us. The days for us have been very long. We have seen horrific scenes that were never talked about to anybody else. They spent more time mounting debris over 35 square kilometers. The team still ringing a recent kidnapping really subeight monitors. All of this in the first three months on the job. They make you sit back sometimes and wonder how you meant it in the hotspot at the start of your job . Idea. Ive been here many times. I sometimes still life may never be the same again. Thanks for watching. It still sends chills down my back to watch some of those images. It is Available Online if you want to have a look at that. Now in the statement by ambassador abba con, he did mention the heavy toll borne by a civilian population. I think it is important to give a quick snapshot on the situation in as reported by our monitors. Violence continues unabated in the situation has deteriorated over the past weeks and months. Heavy weaponry continues to be realized and this is a statistic. In the past week alone, two dozen explosions have been recorded by our monitors in iran. By the way, we have some file photos from the scene of the crash i worked a year ago. Also, monitors on the ground are monitoring the movement and use of heavy weaponry. Most recently we have been monitoring developing majestic capabilities of groups. This involves more concentration of ammunition and military vehicles close to what appears to be functioning railway jurisdiction. Most of you know we have drones in the air in a previous makes a large concentration of military hardware. And we are talking about like main battle tank and also talking about sophisticated weaponry such as surfacetoair missiles that are uavs have seen. Also, there are many challenges to operate in such a complex sound over the past few weeks they have been subject to systematic jammy never video and gps and we are trying to set a cicada and military grade going on. In terms of people on the ground, but weve also been observing is the socalled dpr and lpr have seemed not able to provide for basic human needs in the areas they control. The judicial system seems almost functional where people under detention have to wait to be seen by a court. Our colleaguecolleague s in the u. N. Have been doing a fabulous job trying as best they can to document the toll on the civilians and the number is again very stark and horrifying. The latest numbers indicate that almost 7000 have been killed since the conflict began. By the way the number does include the victims of mh17 and in terms of the number of people injured, almost 17000. A number hard to believe from 2. 3 Million People uprooted since the conflict began in april 2014. This is an important number because a year ago ukraine had virtually no displaced population. Now according to the u. N. Come ukraine is in the list of the top 10 countries in the world with the largest number of displaced people. Amid all this, lightly at the benefit to an industry and commerce as choate and markets are increasingly cut off. We are often reporting on the situation at check points on the front line and people are forced to eight hours and days at check point that are unfortunately subject to frequent shelling. Another huge enormous problem is the lack of water. Cant shelling along the front lines have run third water pipes inoperable and weve been active recently doors of dpr controlled area where weve been able to arrange for ceasefires and has allowed access to prepare workers to get the water flowing again and is potentially benefited 2. 5 Million People. I mentioned earlier the challenges to the mission and we do continue to face unacceptable restriction on our freedom of movement on both sides. If a special Monitoring Mission to ukraine remains the Main International and events on the ground and we will continue to conduct our impartial monitoring. By the way our mandate has been extended to march of next year. We have been present without interruption on both sides and will continue to do so. By the way we have 500 monitors from over 40 different artistic painting state. Just shifting quickly to mh17 is one of the latest developments in late june the mission was informed the dutch led Investigation Team had to discontinue its mission temporarily due to lack of access in areas controlled by the socalled lpr. Up until then the special Monitoring Mission had been facilitating access for expert and investigators. We facilitate access press the photos indicate repatriation of human remains, personal belongings and aircraft debris. It was on november 14 were recovery work at the debris began and now is back in the netherlands and being reconstruct it. Going back togoing back to exactly one year ago today mission was undressing 24 hours after the pointer. It came down. It was a horrific scene or parts of the aircraft were still smoldering, bodies laid out in the field and there was no perimeter security. The 1st is regrettably difficult. We 1st arrived we were greeted by a small group of rebels who really seem trying to intimidate us in the days after that, the access did improve and we were able to facilitate access for experts from ukraine malaysia, australia, and the netherlands. And it was during those first two weeks that reported to the 57 participating states and by extension to the world via daily reports, spot reports and countless Immediate Use and tribunes media and tribunes. Held many media scrums and press conferencees at the site of the crash and also at the in in donetsk itself and was we couldnt from the crash site we held men remote meetings. And by the way they lack of access ukrainian for journalist is still in place. Where the plane came down and where the Railway Station was up until then, it was a nogo zone for us. Its exactly the same area where four of our colleagues were kidnapped several weeks earlier. They were held for a month and fortunately were released unharmed and unconditionally just a few weeks before may 17 came down. The other important fact i wanted to point out as many ofow how have of the Trilateral Contract Group represent toughs from the ukraine the russian federation, and the ose and this group regularly by video link communicate with the rebel groups and on the evening that after may 17 came down, the Trilateral Contact Group actually did meet and it was able to speak to the rebels by video link, and what was agreed upon at that time this is quite important is to secure the site of the crash to provide safe access to the site for rescue teams national and International Investigators and for special Monitoring Mission and to cooperate with ukrainian authorities and for practical questions in the course of the rescue operation. Again, we felt very privileged to have been there at the right time and to do the work that we did, and i just wanted to read a wrote rom the Dutch Foreign minister from december 2014. He said that without the efforts of the ose the netherlands would never have been able to make a much progress and repatriating human remained, personal belongings and wreckage from the flight. Now, i also want to say that ill end with this on a very personal note because this crash, this disaster, as any disaster touches us in many different ways, and the crash site i arrivalling there and working there for weeks was very very heart everyoning, the things we saw in january and ill end on this note i had the privilege of meeting one of the relatives for the first time from the flight, very young talented impressive young man jordan wither. His uncle, glen thomas, was on the flight. He was a spokesperson for the world health organization, like myself former journalist, and around my age as well. He was about to turn 50. Funloving loved to travel. And his nephew, jordan, appeared in a bbc documentary on ma17s spoke very highly of his uncle who, by the way was on his way to that aids conference in melbourne, and i just wanted to as a kind of tribute to glenn and also to the other relatives on the plane just read a couple of lines of what his twin sister tracy said to him. Glen there was no uncle or brother lime him in the world. The most generous kind person, who always thought about others first. He loved life and was doing what he does best, traveling. Theres not a bad word to say about him. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you so much, michael. Thank you for joining us today. I know it wasnt easy to be there in the first few days and the first few hours on the ground in Eastern Ukraine and people like who risked their lives to be in the zone and report what was happening on the ground have set the narrative and changed the narrative around the conflict in ukraine and the narrative that the kremlin media has been trying to put forthever since, and id just like to point out that these investigate give groups, investigate stiff journalists, had been tracking the forgeries the kremlin has put out. Photo shopped images, et cetera and revealing the truth behind this terrible tragedy and so id like to ask julia to come back up and set the stage for the lost two speakers. So, as arena mentioned the investigations they have been doing have been unprecedent net the sense that usually these kinds of this kind of work, tracking satellite imagery tracking troop movements or movements of military material happened behind closed doors and we just got the report at the en. This is in some ways an experiment that is being rep mix indicated in front of our eyes by people like iggy and others. Youre seeing this investigation unfold in real time, very transparently. The thing though, is that when you look at the information space, ever since the very first day, its like people knew exactly what happened, and then very quickly the political narrative or the need for political narrative kicked in and both sides kind of dug in on what they thought happened or wanted to think happened, and in that sense the work of people like rudy ask simone have been extremely important in that just constantly bringing the narrative back, not to whether or not satellite imagery was doctored or not but to bodies in the field falling on peoples roofs to guide books to childrens books in the field, luggage just constantly bringing us back to the very real human cost, about the fact is simone said in one of his reports in russian roulette, that this tragedy brought the conflict that everybody was trying to kind of sweep to the side of their consciousness to the doorstep of the International Community to realize they had to do something about this, they had to pay attention, because it did in a very strange bizarre way, a year ago affect them as well. So im going to introduce simone an awardwinning documentary journalist. He spent the last year more than a year doing frontline reporting for vice out of kiev, doing absolutely incredible work indesspencible work. So simone . Thank you julia i just wanted to tip my hat to all of the people who did a lot of the investigation that made it possible for us to understand what happened, because initially we came out there and we were just reporting what we were seeing on the ground, and it was really horrific, but it took all of those investigations that were done, and corrective and journalists from the guardian and the telegraph and all of the other newspapers out there who really put in a lot of work into piecing it together, for us to have an understanding. And i think now we do have an understanding. And i want to say that i havent done any kind of investigation on that level myself at all but what we did do i remember the moment when it became clear to everybody that a plane had come down in Eastern Ukraine and like what a shocking moment that was. I was on a train from kiev to one of those that they have in ukraine, very modern train and you feel like youre in anyway part of the world and just sitting there you have internet and this modern setting, and your reading your twitter feed, and theres something that came down about plane crashing, somebody said it was malaysian plane, and i it was like one of those september 11th moments for me, really, but a at first it just seemed so outrageous and ridiculous, that i thought somebody was making a joke about the previous malaysian airliner that disappeared. Earlier that morning the rebels had announced they downed a ukrainian transport plane. I thought somebody was making a sick joke about that. But very quickly we realize this was a real incident, and we channeled owl all of our resources to get there and spend the next few days there. But again issue this was just on the ground reporting and it told us what was happening at the time but didnt tell us the whole back story of the we have never done an investigation like that. The only sort of, i suppose little piece that we have been able to add to the general understanding of the whole story was we have been able to confirm one of the sbu recordings that the Ukrainian Security Services Made of one of the rebel leaders, in the peoples republic a guy called a kozak leader, report by the Security Services and its very hard to know whether you can trust the stuff being put out there on youtube by Security Services or anybody else, so i thought that it was an accomplishment to get in front of this gave and to have him admit that, yes he was the person who made that phone call, and i think we can play it out in. Its from one of the reports we did about mh17. [speaking in foreign language] [speaking in foreign language] i want you to know when i was doing that interview i was terrified, because we had come in there with a russian reporter who is a great photographer and he introduced himself as being from the russian publication that he sometimes works for and i just sort of kept my mouth shut, and we were having a pretty innocent conversation up until that moment when we brought mh17 into the picture and it was obviously something really, really really didnt want to talk about. Theres a bit of a prestory how we actually ended up there. I wasnt planning to see him at all. We were on our way to see another field commander who had recently started doing these peoples courts where he was taking people accused of certain crimes putting them in front of the towns people and getting the towns people to vote on whether they should be found guilty and executed. And then putting those videos out on the internet. He is in a neighboring town. They had a sort of rivalry going on which i didnt know about at the time, and we were just driving through the area when we were stopped at a cossack checkpoint and the cossacks asked us where we were going. We said we were going to see this man and had an invitation from him to interview him about them peoples courts and day were like no, no, no, no, our commander is the stronger commander of the two. You really have to see him. He does all of the fighting. He just sits there and puts videos on the internet. You dont want to speak at him. We said, we can come back and see your leader afterwards. No, youre going straight there. So literally we were scoressed to an interview with this goo which we had not planned on doing, who i hadnt heard of except for this recording. It sunk in halfway into the interview that this was the guy that the sbu had recorded. So that the story of that. And the reason im telling it is because this is just like one tiny fragment that gives us the overall picture. And what everybody else did who was on the ground and verifying the entire mh17 story all of the places they visit all of the people they visited all of the insane checkpoints they went through. All of the angry towns people they probably had to confront, and fearful towns people who didnt want to say what theyd seen. There must be a hundred stories like mine that the investigators, the citizen journalists, have done, have gone through and i think we owe them all a big thanks for doing all of that. So thats what i wanted to tell you about today how difficult it is to work outside in Eastern Ukraine, and to thank all of the people who have been involved in this investigation. [applause] up next well have rudy, at news hour. Its a Dutch Public Television program, and rudy has reported extensively from Eastern Ukraine on the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight 17. He has also reported from afghanistan twice and interviewed people like desmond tutu. All right. Hello. Im rudie reporting on the annexation of crimea, the uprising and after that the separatists First Military successes and in february i reported from the vpr about the agreements and the falls but of course after a year ago i also rushed to the mh17 crash site after it was downed. You can play the video. When i arrived there i was especially struck about the i dont see a video well when i arrived there i was struck by the stories of the villagers who are living around the crash site and saw bodies falling on their roofs or in their gather. S. Their gardens. [speaking in foreign language] i recently visited the lady who saw brief he her name is marina, she told me after the downing of mh17 she was so traumatizessed she had to take tranquilizer to sleep and when severe shelling hit her town she fled elsewhere. Also about 20 orphans playing soccer withed bodies, corpses falling on their playfield. The dutch forensics didnt go to the crash area to recover the bodies. The rebels started to do. By then the smell of the remain next field in temperatures over 90 degrees was getting unbearable. Ive spoken to boys as young as 16 years old who helped firemen and mine workers recovering the naked bodies. [speaking in foreign language] emotions while report on the disaster never came to slows to does close to me as this time. 200 dutch died aboard the plane, many of them coming from the town where the tv Networks Like mine are based. A small country like the netherlandses, seems like everybody knew someone who knew someone on the flight. Colleagues and friends of mine had been onboard. One of my acquaintances had lost four aboard, and at the time he was text knowing get firsthand updates on the situation at the crash site. Also my cameraman Emmy Award Winner had a friend aboard flight mh17. These are other pictures, i think. This is 31yearold. Would not be able so visit the crash area. We took some flowers from the field around it back to the netherlands. The dutch floral artists made an artwork from it, called sunflower bouquet. We donated it to relatives also to almost 250 other bereaved across the world. This is in australia. An exhibition on the whole process started yesterday in a museum near amsterdam. The bereaved who opened the exhibition walked through. We tried to bring the sunflower fields of east ukraine to the netherlands since the bereaved in the netherlands still cannot go to the war torn east of ukraine. Only a few small body parts were recovered and flown back to the netherlands on one of the ten impressive repatriation flights. But the relatives of this boy have nothing. Gary and his mother made this picture of themselves after boarding on mh17. He was found gary was not. His father and stepmother waited in vain until the end of the identification process. The first of july, almost two weeks ago a little more than two weeks ago actually. Last week theyre buried an empty coffin. His father told me he is jealous at other bereaved who do have some small body parts. Have returned to the crash site many times over the last year. Reporting from there has not been easy because of the constant shelling. This is, for instance, workers crater right next to the rebel occupied crash site. We have been caught in incoming shelling from a Ukrainian Army as well as from the rebels. [speaking in foreign language] we of course all know that the separatists started this war and russia backed. The institutes have put forward concrete proof for that. One report not mentioned was about the russian soldier discovered all lying and tracked them down to russia and placed him in east of ukraine in february. You have to watch the report. Myself i saw rebels in dont net wearing russian flags on the shoulders two day after the crash of mm17. These guys im not sure if you can see it, but they were pretty friendly, actually, but a few others just before we made this picture they forced to us delete footage otherwise they, would i quote, shoot our heads off. Recently i stayed a night in a Nuclear Bomb Shelter in the factory on the ukrainian side of the front line, only five miles from the donetsk airport. I believe the New York Times did a story on it. The rebels shell it every few days. But despite the fact that several workers died, after shelling over the last year, 3,000 workers keep on producing for the metal industry. Many of them live on the territory because in its bomb shelters its safer than in the surrounding villages. The staff and the local authorities do complain that the Ukrainian Army is hiding its artillery behind the plant. The hospital, and the schools making workers and civilians the target for the rebels. They say that their own army is ignoring their requests to move its tanks to other positions. I have experienced other tragic results of the ukraineup army striking back. The central bus station People Living living in bomb shelters, lots of kid, too like you can see here. Thats in donetsk. And civilian apartments, hospitals and the dnr being hit by rockets and villages being totally destroyed in the crossfire. The war is a human catastrophe on both sides. Michael gave you some numbers on that. But apart from u. S. Weapon supplies, ukraine is on their own fighting the rebels and russian soldiers. The downing of mh17 has had a limit feeble on the development of the war in Eastern Ukraine. I shuffled politics creating a new war. But besides a dutch professor on social administration who said that the dutch, until year ago still seemed to think that our country just has to fight the water and it seemed that other evil powers only existed abroad. But after the crash of mh17, a small country suddenly became part of the huge geopolitical crisis. Mh17 could be for the netherlandss and europe what 9 11 was for the u. S. The defense poll seems to be shifting and our government tends to rates the Defense Budget and no European Countries realize we have to upgrade intelligence cooperate on foreign policy, but our government is very cautious not to blame the russians as the suspects for downing mh17 at this moment. The Prime Minister is always pointing out that we have to wait for the Investigation Committees report which comes out october and as you know, probably that cnn claimed the report will state that the rebels took mh17 down. I personally dont think this report will state that because the Investigation Team is just investigating the cause and sources win the team say theyre trying their best to keep the russian investigators also involved. Pointing out the suspects is the task of our Public Prosecutor who runs its own investigation which outcome is due later. As you probably know our government suggested to install a United Nations tribunal for the prosecution of and russian as blocked this and many legal experts are skin tech cal about such a tribunal for various reasons. Early june, i returned to the mh17 crash site with the father of a victim who i mentioned earlier. He met with the rescue worker and with the local mayors. He touched the ground of the socalled burn site, where some where his son died. He laid down roses at the cross which is supposed to keep evil out of the village. Bereaved, 22yearold man who lost his brother, recently said to me they say time heals all wounds, but after one year this wound has not held a bit not healed a bit. Thank you. [applause] thank you so much. As we know, the mh17 crash affected netherlands disproportionately, and thank you so much for all your reporting you have done on this. So now we have had some discussions from all of our distinguished guests and id like to ask them to now come up and have a discussion on the stage. So Julia Simon Iggy okay. This is a caution for all of you guys. Its exactly a year later and i think for unfortunately for most people outside the the netherlands or ukraine or russia this anniversary barely registers, just as the tragedy exploded into the world reside consciousness, it very quickly faded. Why should the world keep paying attention . You know, as spokesperson for the special Monitoring Mission its one of the things i struggle day after day more recently is keeping ukraine in the headlines. Its very important that the news media continue to cover the conflict in ukraine. Of course theres a lot of competition now with what else is going on in the world but the worst thing that could happen right now is if the world everted its gaze from the conflict there. In terms of the disaster itself, theres still quite a bit of interest. I think part of the problem were finding because we do as much as we can help facilitate access for journalists and ive had the pleasure of working with professionals like rudie, for example. Because of the restrictions on access its becoming increasingly difficult for many journalists to access the area. Simon can talk about that too. So were doing whatever we can to get the information out of there, through our daily reports can through spot reports but also i indicated in my presentation we are facing severe restrictions on access. I mentioned the jamming of our uav, things like that. So hopefully this will lift and people will have more access. The other thing of course, is that when we do report, there is everyone knows a propaganda war going on, and its amazing to watch whatever you tweet or put on facebook, how things can be taken one way or the other or misinterpreted. So we the mission as much as possible one of our strengths i dont mean to sound like a p. R. Guy but it is the way i feel part of our strength is our integrity and our transparency and the fact that we only report what exactly we see with our own eyes and ears and try to stay away from speculation. Im upset because of the crash of mh17, i got the opportunity to report on the war in Eastern Ukraine much more than i would probably have if mh17 didnt crash. So thats an involvement you could say. It is getting more and more difficult to move around, as michael was saying. I was there in june, and right now you have to have, i think four partners from both sideses of the conflict to get around, and i was just talking about the factory to get you an example to get there from dodo net, which is probably donetsk, which is seven or eight miles took seven and a half hours to cross the checkpoints, the ukrainian side checking everybody very well now, big traffic jams at these checkpoints. So thats very difficult. One thing which has surprised me a lot i must say is something i referred to in my speech, was that mh17 did not really affect the war much. The kremlin has just kept on denying any involvement in mh17 as well as in the war in Eastern Ukraine, and thats something scientists or people who know much more about politics than i do have to judge on, but thats something that is frightening. As a citizen of a country that like has been disproportionately affected, im sure its still very much part of the discussion and the news metabolism your country. Who should the rest of the world keep paying attention . Yes as i told you a lot of people in the whole are frustrated that the our government and the Investigation Committee so silent. They really want to hear something, to hear some news, and thats a lot of controversy about the fact that were not hearing anything about that. Our Prime Minister is so cautious to point anybody out as a suspect. But, its just a few months now we will probably hear more about that. Its something that the dutch really need, it seems. Do you think thats because if they come out and start pointing the finger, that it obliges them to a course of action . Well, it does, so thats a new political problem which appears if they do so. Of course its a small country and the neglecter leans is difficult to deal with a big country like russia, but even for europe, it will cause a lot of problems to think about. Would there have to be more sanctions . What way would we you have the gas a lot of big issues which have to be solved. So i think also a little bit our governments its looking up to that problem. But on the other hand, of course its also reasonable to have the Investigation Committee work in peace. Come back to the Dutch Connection but i think iggy wanted to Say Something. So, the question you asked was, why should the world not avert its gaze fromm h17. I think like rudy talked about in the netherlands it was an extremely significant event to a relatively small country and a small population. I think a lot of people, probably the majority of people, know somebody who was affected. I was in the netherlands at the time. I was living there for about a year and even just being in the country, you can really feel how tragic it was and i think that especially with the propaganda war that michael mentioned the lies russia has been putting out, the russian state and its media. The way see it, effectively denying the death of friends who were killed, the truth and denying any kind of closure and so for this reason it remains extremely important for the world not to avert its gaze and for people to try and get the answers, the full answers about what happens. And i think that rudy mentioned, its an extremely important event for europe, and for the netherlands and definitely the world must not avert its gaze. I dont think mh17 is going anywhere. I think right enough its the calm before the storm. Because were all waiting for these reports to come out the two different investigations, the one into what happened and the one into who is at fault and once those things come out people are going realize that the downing was putins gadhafi moment and the beginning of his isolation from the rest of the world you cant isolate the whole country as libya was isolated but the same emotion and desire to do so, i think is going to be there once all of the is are dotted and ts are crossed and all of the statesmen have to tell their publics they believe that the Russian Military was behind this. And so i think right now were talking about it because its the anniversary but were going to be talking a lot more about this down the line, i think maybe even for decades to come. So, then, what happens . We have this proposal to create a tribunal to try those responsible. Russia is on the security council. That proposal is not going to go anywhere. So lets say the report comes out and says this brigade is responsible. Then what happens . Well, even if there isnt a u. N. Tribunal, they can put it to a vote of the General Assembly and russia doesnt have a veto there so theres still a potential for that to happen. But even if it doesnt happen, think that most western countries are going to stand by the findings of the dutch investigators. I dont think they need a u. N. Tribunal. The u. N. Tribunal is needed for the russian people to be hospital. The trouble for them is that if there isnt a tribunal, that they recognize that points the finger at some specific actors, maybe down from the commanderinchief to the people who pushed the button, that sort of implicates the entire russian people. So for ordinary russians to be able to absolve themselves of the crime they need a process which their country and they themselves can recognize as being an objective process. I think its very important for russia primarily to have the international tribunal. I want to wind it back to the what actually happened that day a year ago. David, mentioned facts that everybody agrees on, it was this and that. It seemed like from the very beginning the russians were doing their jut most utmost to make sure the was no fact anybody could agree on, throwing in information muddying the water. All of you did investigatety work on this. How do you grasp tangible things when the russians are trying to make everything kind of disintegrate in your hands. Its pretty hard to check things. Thats why i expect especially the neglecterland its hard to find people who are willing to talk on record because everybody is involved in the Investigation Committee it seems. For instance, the famous 21st 21st of july press conference giving in moscow. You got the radar images saying that theres su25 in the air at the time mh17 was downed. I tried for months to get a radar expert on the record just looking at the image and saying something if it was genuine. Eventual live i got a few experts, an italian guy who seemed to be the european top expert on radar images, and it appeared that the points that the russians point out as being the su25 is actually falling debris fromm h17. Its as simple as that but was hard to make a story because of everybodys being silent at the moment but if the Investigation Report comes out probably things like that will become much more clear in a short time. I think they want to push that back as far as possible. Like you said, nobody wants to have to confront the fact they have to somehow deal with russia and i also kind of disagree with the idea that this didnt change the course of the war. I think it brought a lot more unity in europe for sanctions and i think that the threat of further sanctions definitely stayed russias hand in terms of maybe expanding the operations to other parts of ukraine. We can never know that for sure, but i think there is a deterrent effect of the effect threat of greater sanks which were buoyed by this tragedy. You talk about russias increasing isolation and when cnn leaked the preliminary findings of the dutch investigators a couple days ago russiasdid a extensive report on it and said, you know, showed images again and video of the Infamous Press conference in moscow, at the defense ministry, and said we trotted out all this information. We have concrete facts. Within days we were so transparent. The west has no evidence, nothing. How do you deal this gets back to my question about facts everybody agrees on. How do you deal with the fact that you youre dealing with something that its very russian you present evidence and they say, dont see any evidence. So how do you all of your roles, which are very different how do you deal with that . With trolls . I mean, the main the kremlin and the media apparatus. You could say theyre waiting on the propaganda war. Theyre saying, hey we presented all kinds of stuff and you didnt. For instance, everybody is screaming online, where are the american satellite images . Why dont we see them . Why dont its amazing. And the netherlands a lot of dutch critics are screaming this. Why dont you show the images, the satellite images . And even until now we dont know if our Investigation Committee actually has those images. Because theyre not commenting on that, either so thats definitely a very difficult thing. So the work of organizations help . Did people in the Netherlands Trust that . Not everybody of course but i think a lot of people do, and i think its been very important also. Ive experienced that maybe simon and i Old School Field reporters, discovered theres a lot of people in line who are doing things were probably not capable of, and thats very impressive. I think its very good that we can help each other out, for instance they do the Online Research stuff and then simon goes back to the russia and the Eastern Ukraine to check the things on the spot. My investigation of the russia soldiers in Eastern Ukraine, basically we shared photographs and they were this travel was taken here, here, and here how did you do that . How did you do that . Geolocation, so going back to how do we know what is true, how do we know what is false . For example, verification is something we do to if we find an image we try to locate that exactly or try to look at what the actual original source that was. So often time when we deal with things that have been uploaded by the person who actually took the image who had no idea it had anything to do with mh17, who is a real person, whose Instagram Account is true. This is a primary source. I think, for example as the russians began the russian state media threw out the line where, we have present stuff and you havent. Well they never actually really talked about anything that was presented in Russian Media about that is interesting thing. The day after my investigation on mh17 came out within half hour, a researcher from russia today, and later by the evening they were the basically they had my article up on the screen where you could see my name but would say who is this person . Who is this anonymous person . Theonomy name was there. And instead they talked about el wrote and attacking him for who pays you and so on. And whereas were volunteers get nothing money and russia is so i think its very convenient for them to say the west doesnt have anything when they deliberately tried to confuse everyone and ignore everything else. Michael . If could i Say Something as someone two deals with journalists around the world, what we are seeing and hear from journalists is budget cutting slashing of budget inside the newsroom, theres a lot of interest in ukraine from colleague wes work with, but as more and more bean counters move into newsrooms and foreign reporting budgets are cut its very difficult to do that sort of old school, if is can put it that way investigative reporting. So i talked to colleagues of mine and other international organizations, and i think theres an awareness now among us that its incumbent on us to help facilitate the work of journalists by making it easier for them to go to the field in which we operate whether thats providing broadcasted quality b role and ways to get around the budget cults but it is unfortunately hitting very, very severely to many mainstream media. The opposite of what is happening in official Russian Media. Their budgets keep going up and up. Its interesting because some of the investigative work going on are done by at their desk going through trolls or going through geolocating things like that. So theres no replacement i must say for the traditional gum shoe work that these two gentlemen do, day in and day out. So again anything we can do to help facilitate that is very important. Simon you mentioned should be some kind of process accountability and process of judgment would be good for to russian people. Of you look at the Russian Media face not even since mh17 came down but since the movement started, russians have been getting a completely different picture, an entirely its like you also mentioned russias isolation. Informationally theyre becoming very isolated. So if you look at the channel 1 report from a couple days ago its presented to like, all of the stuff that was done, like proving that satellite images are photoship shopped photo shopped, those corrections never run on russian tv. How do you deal with the fact that as far as the russian population go, the ukrainians are shouted down and then trying to force the blame on russia. And even the ose is seen as a western ploy to humiliate russia. How to do you deal with that. The people in russia will never want to understand or try to understand, and theyve dug into their positions and thats that. Maybe im overestimating the power of United Nations processes of some kind. But i think the United Nations is something that the russian government harkens to all of the time. At least rhetorically, and talks about hough its an Important Institution to them and they recognize it and want be to bart of it and love their veto in and it et cetera et cetera. So im not saying that suddenly everybodys eyes are going to open but at least there will be a segment of the population which is following things, that are coming from outside of the Russian Media sphere, that hopefully will get something out of it, and i think it would be important maybe to russian future generations as well. If not now. Anyone . An example yesterday australian broadcaster aired a video made right after the crash by the rebels themselves, looking at the debris and commenting on that and at the end of the clip theyre something about s vue 25 su25 a jet fighter. My network had a voice analyst look at it, and the video is not new at all. Theres clips of that already aired by the bbc previously, and if you compare that, the analysts saying that this voice is new voice, sounds like its being dubbed because more hollow and could be recorded inside. So theres now discussion about the genuinity of it, and also if its dubbed, its unprecedented. These kinds of videos being manipulated in such a way is something we dont really know yet. Its pretty new. The propaganda war michael was referring to is getting serious. The fake experts fake think tanks the russians are trotting out. Did you want to add to that . Well, i think id say to that is that just reminds us of the unique organization that we are in. With the way shy remind people that were unique in the sense that 57 participating states, which includes Russia Ukraine u. S. Canada, votes by consensus. Our mission was born by a consensus vote. The mandate extended by consensus. So it is important to have these International Body these international instruments. Im often asked why is it dead . My answer is that its so crucially important to have a road map in place and have a forum for dialogue the worst thing that could happen is theres no dialogue whatsoever and theyre no road map in place. So part of our role is to help facilitate that dialogue. I messengers the Trilateral Contact Group. Things are extremely fragile right now. A lot of ammunition built up at the same place heavy weaponry, things are extremely extremely tense. So that is why its so important to have that dialogue take place. I have one more question for rudy and then open it up to the audience. You alluded to this in your presentation about the political changes happening inside the netherlands as a result of the mh17 crash. The netherlands used to have a very close relationship, especially the previous decade. What was that reevaluation like politically inside the netherlandses . I dont think you can see it yet to be honest. As you know in europe, we depend on the local russian gas a lot of economic interconnections between europe and russia, and we were pretty severe and our Prime Minister also, of course, the economic sanks. After that, like after the first month, nothing really happened. We have had our political interconnection with russia in a pretty normal way and i dont think you can see it yet. Referring to the Defense Budget and stuff like that, that has to be get mortgage clear in september we have our knew government budget presented. I think its too early to say. Its yeah, i think its interesting to see that our government is like taking their hands off anything. What about man on the street . How do they view the russians maybe before the crash and after . I think i dont know exactly. The more interesting thing i find that theres also in holland a group of people its hard to say how big the group is because theyre mainly online, which is a libertarian right wing blogger type group who are very much antieuropean union, and for that, they seem to be proputin. And so theres also within the netherlandses, despite the fact that a lot of evidence now against russianbacked separatists people are actually criticizing access media and our government for being too antiputin. Well, well open the floor up to questions. Let make sure theyre questions not statements. Steve winters this is for michael. You mentioned thats couple of times aa midnightor point but you tau talked about the jamming of your drones. My understanding is there theres a lot of jamming going on but its to mess up the targeting by he heavy are drillry from the ukraine side so they cant hit the rebel targets accurately do you see this jamming has just directed at you actually to how prevent what youre doing or is it something that is taking place because jamming is go on to make sure people cant identified targets and has nothing to do with you directly. A good question. Jamming has been going on for weeks, if not months, however wide swaths of territory controlled by the dpr. I believe it was in past week that one of our drones actually spotted a jamming vehicle and it jammed the video feed, also confuses the gps system. 0 so theyre put on map all control. Its manual control. And our drones have also been targeted by light fire. So one of them is inoperable because of that, because of that. Theres some anxiety if can put it that way over these drones. I dont know if any of you remember but once the big numbers of australians and dutch experts came into the may 17 site the Australian Federal Police Brought a drone with them so they could have an aerial eye in the sky. The rebels at that time in control of the crash site were so nervous they didnt allow it into the sky. That thing never flew. So that was very unfortunate but a it was thought at that time their drone could help spot human remains personal belongings that sort of thing. We saw video drones today flying during the local memorial. Im not sure which network was able to put them in the sky but it was allowed by the rebels a lot of times to put video drones up. John mentioned going to ger ky n in his opening remarks but nobody else said a word about him. Can anybody say what has become of them . Has anyone done any further investigation of the communications between him and various other people after the incident . As far as i know, i havent met him personally in moscow, but he is around, and he goes to various fundraisers. He very rarely gives interviews to big networks but he does give interviews to nationalist friendly sort of internet Youtube Channel type stations quite often. And i dont think he has any direct control over what is going on in Eastern Ukraine anymore at all. I think he has been banned by the kremlin from participating and now is just sort of a fire brand loud mouth who likes to criticize the kremlins policy for not expanding the war further into ukraine. Did track down boradide, the Prime Minister of the republic at the time recently. We have an interview appointment with him and he was very friendly and open to give an interview, but we showed up, my colleague and i showed up twice at hit office but he was is not there. A week later i saw a picture in a newspaper of a correspondent and he bumped into this guy in a cafe. Ten International Journalists drinking beers suddenly bumping into alex, and they made a selfie of the group it was quite a miniscandal to be honest. Didnt look very good. But in their defense they were all drunk. I have a couple of suggestions and one question. Just with enormous investigation that have been done, it does not look like that you have used the information that have been uncovered by russian and ukrainian bloggers. This is enormous information have been some kind of found even very first few days after the tragedy. And can think would be extremely useful to combine what you have done with what have been done by russians and ukraine bloggers. It gives me the suggestion to you, when you are saying i think probably you had in mind special kremlin just not confusion russians and kremlin. Russians. Thats a very important difference