A court in Kyiv has ordered the arrest of Sergey Dubinsky, a suspect in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine in July 2014.
Shevchenkivsky District Court of Kyiv issued a warrant to Ukraine’s SBU security service to detain Dubinsky, the SBU told Ukrainnski Novyny, the online news outlet, in a report published on Dec. 9.
Dubinsky, also known by his call-sign Khmury (“Grumpy” in Russian), is suspected of arranging the transporting into Ukraine of the Russian Buk missile launcher that downed MH17 Malaysia Airlines Flight on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 people on board.
Dubinsky is also a veteran of the Russian Armed Forces, who served as head of intelligence for Igor “Strelkov” Girkin – a suspected Russian military intelligence officer who claims to have led the Russian military intervention in Ukraine’s Donbas in 2014, starting the current war.
“Dubinsky has been charged with participation in terrorist act and has been informed about the prosecution.” the SBU told Ukrainnski Novyny. Dubinsky is thought to be living in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory of Crimea.
The MH17 Joint Investigation Team or JIT, consisting of investigators from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine, on Sept. 28, 2016 confirmed that the missile that destroyed MH17 was smuggled in from Russia with Buk unit 332. The missile was fired from part of the Donbas that was under the control of Russian-led forces at that time.
The open-source investigating team Bellingcat in October 2015 released further information indicating that the Buk unit that shot down MH17 belonged to Russia’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, based in Kursk.
The report documents the route a military convoy including Buk 332 took from Russia’s Kursk, departing on June 23, 2014 and heading for the Russia-Ukraine border, with the convoy last seen in Millerovo, southern Russia, on June 25. The JIT has agreed with Bellingcat’s findings.
Dubinsky’s voice is also allegedly heard in phone calls intercepted by the SBU telling Russian-led soldiers where to take the Buk and which fighters should accompany the convoy.
On March, 2017 Bellingcat published another investigation, this time focusing on Dubinsky’s role in the downing of MH17.
“Additional information has surfaced that further confirms the identity of Khmury as Sergey Dubinsky,” says the report.
