Bellingcat Podcast: MH17, Episode 4 Guide: Manhunt
You can listen to the fourth episode of the Bellingcat Podcast on the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 (MH17), “Manhunt”, by subscribing on any major podcast application by searching “Bellingcat”, including at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and TuneIn. You can manually add the podcast RSS feed to your favorite podcast app with the URL: bellingcat.libsyn.com/rss
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Episode Description
28 September 2016 – the Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team issues a statement calling for assistance in finding the identities of a number of men they believe to be responsible for downing MH17.
Eliot and his colleagues set to work seeking to unmask the separatists and their Russian handlers who, to date, have only been known by their code names. It turns out that the separatists all use mobile phones, but little do they know that the Ukrainian SBU secret service has been listening in. The SBU release a treasure trove of intercepted calls filled with furtive individuals making all manner of shady plans.
Bellingcat journalists find the contact details of potential suspects and secretly record phony calls with them. Independent experts examine the calls and use voice recognition software to compare them to the SBU intercepts. We have a match. Bellingcat are able to crack the code names and expose the first three men believed to be responsible for downing MH17.
Our Guests
Our guests in episode 4 of the podcast described their experience with hunting for suspects tied to the downing of MH17. Below, you can read some of their reports on the three suspects discussed in the episode — Sergey Dubinsky (Khmury), Oleg Ivannikov (Orion/Andrey Ivanovich), and Nikolai Tkachev (Delfin).
Pavel Kanygin: Hmuriy’s Voice (Novaya Gazeta, 26 April 2017)
Roman Dobrokhotov: Охота на «Дельфина». Ключевой фигурант дела о сбитом «Боинге» MH17 оказался российским генерал-полковником (The Insider, 8 December 2017)
Roman Dobrokhotov: Его выдал женский голос. Опознан генерал ГРУ, ключевой фигурант дела о сбитом «Боинге» MH17 (The Insider, 25 May 2018)
The Fake Personas Behind the Real Tragedy
The three key figures behind the downing of MH17 discussed in the podcast are all still living in Russia, with little chance of them ever leaving the country again.
Sergey Nikolaevich Dubinsky, also known as “Khmury” and “Nikolaevich”, was the head of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic’s military intelligence, directly subordinate to Igor “Strelkov” Girkin. You can read more about Dubinsky, his biography, and his role in the downing of MH17 in the Bellingcat investigations below:
- Identifying Khmuryi, the Major General Linked to the Downing of MH17 (15 February 2017)
- The Role of Sergey Dubinsky in the Downing of MH17 (2 March 2017)
- Identifying the Separatists Linked to the Downing of MH17 (19 June 2019)
Nikolai Fyodorovich Tkachev, also known as “Delfin”, is a semi-retired Colonel General in the Russian Armed Forces, and has previously served as a senior military advisor in Syria. He was briefly involved with coordinating between the Russian military and the so-called separatist republics in 2014 before being replaced due to a number of failures in his role. You can read our investigation identifying Tkachev as “Delfin”, along with his biography and role in eastern Ukraine in 2014, below:
- Russian Colonel General Identified as Key MH17 Figure (8 December 2017)
Oleg Vladimirovich Ivannikov, also known as “Orion” and “Andrey Ivanovich Laptev”, is a senior GRU officer who previously served as the Minister of Defense of the breakaway self-declared state of South Ossetia from 2006 – 2008. Ivannikov is a key figure in the downing of MH17 due to his central role in the procurement and deployment of a Buk missile launcher in July 2014. He was also one of the GRU’s leading figures in organizing state-sponsored actions with the Wagner private military company, tied to Russian billionaire Yevgeny Prigozhin. Along with his voice being intercepted by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) related to MH17, his distinctly high-pitched voice has also been recorded speaking to Wagner CEO Dmitry Utkin.
- MH17 – Russian GRU Commander ‘Orion’ Identified as Oleg Ivannikov (25 May 2018)
- Wagner Mercenaries With GRU-issued Passports: Validating SBU’s Allegation (30 January 2019)
Check for Yourself
You can listen to recorded speech fragments from “Orion” and “Delfin” below, to compare their voices:
Nikolai Tkachev (Delfin):
Oleg Ivannikov (Orion / Andrey Ivanovich):
Preview: Episode 5 Summary
Hear the moment when MH17 was spotted by separatist rebels on the ground in Eastern Ukraine, who decided to shoot a missile at a plane they hadn’t bothered formally identifying.
Listen in on a chilling batch of intercepted calls made on the day of the downing. In a sea of disinformation, half-truths and outright lies, these calls offer a raw, unfiltered account of the moments before and after the shooting. Eliot uses this haunting collection of conversations between the separatist rebels to piece together an accurate picture of what really happened that fateful day when 298 people lost their lives.
Hear the reaction of family members whose loved ones died as a result of the tragic, careless and murderous actions of the men whose voices are captured on these secretly recorded calls.
