E45: Aric Toler on MH17

Today’s episode of The Russia Guy welcomes back Aric Toler from Bellingcat, which together with The Insider has just released a new report that contains some pretty amazing revelations about the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine almost four years ago. All 298 people on board that plane were killed, and Bellingcat has led the way in open-source intelligence gathering when it comes to tracing this back to Russia, and Aric has been one of the group’s key researchers.So what are you going to learn about on today’s episode of The Russia Guy? Aric explained the mystery behind Oleg Ivannikov, the Russian military officer whose voice we now know appears in radio transmissions intercepted by the Ukrainian authorities immediately after the MH17 disaster. Aric also talked about how Bellingcat and The Insider tracked him down and built its evidence, which it turns out was a marvelous blend of Bellingcat’s trademark OSINT, or open-source intelligence, and shoe-leather journalism by reporters from The Insider.Read Bellingcat’s new report on Oleg Ivannikov:https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2018/05/25/mh17-russian-gru-commander-orion-identified-oleg-ivannikov/And here’s Meduza’s summary:https://meduza.io/en/feature/2018/05/25/oh-hello-mr-oleg-orion-ivannikov If you’re at all interested in what’s possible with OSINT in eastern Ukraine, you definitely want to be following Aric on Twitter at @AricToler:https://twitter.com/arictoler If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider making a contribution at Patreon. No pledge is too small or too large. Many thanks to all the listeners already pledging. Your assistance helps me pay for the audio recording and hosting expenses of this podcast.https://www.patreon.com/kevinrothrockSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/kevinrothrock)