MH-17: Beware of the "Chameleon"

Wayne Madsen
Strategic Culture

The 10-day NATO exercise code named «BREEZE 2014» has ended in Black Sea. The exercise, which included the use of electronic warfare and electronic intelligence aircraft such as the Boeing EA-18G Growler and the Boeing E3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS), coincided with the shootdown of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine, some 40 miles from the Russian border. NATO ships and aircraft had the Donetsk and Luhansk regions under total radar and electronic surveillance. 

MH-17 was shot down over a region where Russian-speaking separatist forces have been battling against the alliance of the Ukrainian armed forces and a private mercenary force answerable to a Ukrainian-Jewish billionaire oligarch.

The U.S. Army has revealed that the 10-day exercise involved «commercial traffic monitoring». Because of the sophistication of the electronic warfare and intelligence used during SEA BREEZE, it can be assumed that commercial traffic monitoring included monitoring the track of MH-17.

Past NATO-Ukraine exercises in Crimea were called «SEA BREEZE». This year's annual SEA BREEZE exercise with Ukraine, approved by the rump Ukrainian Parliament, is clouded in mystery with the Pentagon saying it was only «in the planning stage and we can't announce dates yet». However, 200 U.S. Army personnel normally assigned to bases in Germany were in Ukraine during the time of the MH-17 fly-over. They were participating in NATO exercise RAPID TRIDENT II. Ukraine's Ministry of Defense led the exercise.

BREEZE included the AEGIS-class guided missile cruiser USS Vela Gulf.  AEGIS cruisers' AN/SPY 1 radar has the ability to track all aircraft over a large region. For example, the AEGIS test center in Moorestown, New Jersey, was able to see the Boeing 747 TWA Flight 800 when it disappeared from radar screens in 1996 near East Moriches Bay, Long Island. According to Lockheed Martin personnel who operated the AEGIS test center in New Jersey, the Navy ordered the SPY 1 radar turned off for «maintenance» shortly before the downing of TWA 800.

From the Black Sea, the Vela Gulf was able to track Malaysian Airlines 17 over the Black Sea and any missiles fired at the plane. U.S. AWACS electronic intelligence (ELINT) aircraft were also flying over the Black Sea region at the time of the MH-17 flyover of Ukraine. Growler aircraft have the capability to jam radar systems in all surface-to-air threats. 

The announcement of U.S. BREEZE and RAPID TRIDENT II military maneuvers came on May 21, 2014, and were announced on the website operated by Vice President Joe Biden's office. Biden's son, Hunter Biden, is a newly-named director of the Ukrainian natural gas and oil company Burisma Holdings, Ltd., owned by IhorKolomoisky, the Ukrainian-Israeli mafia oligarch, whose is known as the «Chameleon». Kolomoiskyhas raised his own mercenary army, complete with the BUK missiles allegedly used in the shootdown of MH-17. Kolomoisky, the Governor of Dnipropetrovsk oblast in eastern Ukraine, has threatened terrorist attacks against Russian-speaking officials in eastern Ukraine, including assassinations.

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