17 JULY - THE MALAYSIA CONNECTION


It was this day in 2014 that Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, Boeing 777-200, from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, in the deadliest airliner shoot-down incident till date, was downed by Russian-controlled forces while flying over eastern Ukraine, as all 283 passengers and 15 crew members perished near Hrabove in Donetsk...

After the Dutch Safety Board led joint investigative team's inference in 2016 of the usage of a Buk surface-to-air missile by pro-Russian Ukraine separatists, legal action pursued by Netherlands and Australia from May 2018 against Russia - who obviously denied any involvement - culminated in a trial, in absentia, of three Russians and an Ukrainian separatist...

Incidentally, in the midst of the then month old Crimean crisis (20 Feb - 21 Mar 2014) Malaysia Airlines had lost MH370 over the Indian Ocean. These take me back to Feb 2022 yet again, with the conflict in Eastern Europe having crossed the 500 day mark recently...

War though away from headlines, articles do pour in. I read of two terms - Attritional warfare and Maneuver warfare. The former is conventional and prolonged, seeking to tire the enemy, whereas the latter is based on an element of speed and surprise. They are not alternatives, and need to be performed in that order...

Though the Ukrainian offensive is at a slow pace, it is not bereft of success, like the Russian retreat last year, especially since the Russian army is the most rail-dependant in the world. The latter's attacks now are said to startle the Ukrainian army rhythm rather than gaining territory...

Both ousted Major General Popov and the Wagner head Prigozhin had admitted to high Russian casualties. Experts opine that Putin’s adamancy could lead to a Russian Federation fall, much greater than that of the 1990s...

The war though begun by Putin, every Russian should be affected and concerned by the ensuing crimes committed in Ukraine. That the war is criminal, that the exercise is taking them nowhere, that the Russian regime has exceeded it's brief, and that wiser counsels should prevail sooner rather than them becoming too late...

🙏🙏





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