Even if they captured the offending Buk system and found that as of 5/15/14 it had been stationed in Voronezh and had been inspected on that date by I.I. Ivanov, it wouldn't entail that the Russian government itself had ordered that the thing be transported down to Kammeny-Shakhtinsk and transferred into the rebels' custody in the Donbas.
"We didn't know it was missing and we'll conduct an investigation to find out how it got there."
"How could we know that that missile system wasn't supposed to be on the road. So many columns of armored vehicles and armaments are being shuffled around that it's hard to know if one is illicit."
"Really? It was supposed to be in Voronezh? Welll, we decommissioned one there and they took the wrong one. Some corrupt quartermaster must have sold it."
"That was decommissioned and sold to the All-Powerful Cossack Army, which is a licensed paramilitary group in the S. of Russia. We weren't supposed to check up on them again for another 4 months, and we'll be sure to punish the appropriate person."
Of course each alibi weakens Putin's position, but they're convenient lies that we can't disprove and no Russian seriously would believe. Lying to the West is an okay thing.
The problem is letting Russia define the standards of proof and accepting inconsistencies and subterfuge. Part is that many Americans want to believe Russia more than they believe their own government, some because they've been told their own government lies but have to see clear proof that Putin's government lies, some because it's convenient--they don't like the US being able to throw its weight around and would like "counterbalance." (That the consequences of counterbalance is something they'd intensely dislike is masked by their insistence on how the counterbalance would actually work in practice--perfectly balanced, everybody moral, and peace will reign as the lamb lies down with the lion, watching the newly hired poor beat swords and tanks into plowshares and iPhones.)
It's not necessary to produce a document in which Putin grants official permission for the Buk system to be transferred from a specific place with specific operators, named in the document, for the purpose of shooting down MH17. Putin's underlings and Putin himself have created the atmosphere and allowed the corruption that feeds having "volunteers" head out to "kill fascists" and make the Slavosphere safe for "real Slavs" in the Russian world, with top political parties pledging support to the rebels, official groups supporting them, and a system of unofficial warfare weakening the country.
For instance, Sberbank (and others) are claiming to have capitalization problems. Their response? Move capital from the Ukraine daughter banks to the Russian branch. That leaves the Ukraine branches vastly undercapitalized. In effect, Ukrainian savings have been moved into rubles in Russia, buying a lot of rubles and raising the exchange rate while making a bank failure in Ukraine and stripping Ukraine of resources a viable, feasible, threat. One that Russia did once before, back in the early '90s.
There are trade issues as well. All of which, combined with the rhetoric, has kept the insurrection going for months, allowed the rebels to garner money and weapons, and allowed them to shoot down MH17 instead of having their New Russia project fold in June.
At last word the Ukr forces are inside the Donetsk city limits and fighting, and conducting assaults on Pervomaisk/Stakhanov/Alchevsk, while continuing to press Luhansk and Horlivka. With fighting in Debal'tsevo, that's pretty much the entirety of the northern flank. If Horlivka falls then Donets'k gets a double-dose. Strelkov has continued to throw men and arms into the struggle on the southern flank and finally claimed to have broken through to the Russian border south of Savur-Mohyla, which, if true, will allow the DPR forces to be resupplies with heavy munitions and arms and not require the air drop of supplies from a Russian transport plane that was witnessed yesterday in Sverdlovs'k. On the other hand, he made a similar claim a couple of days ago concerning Kozhevnya and some other little berg, a cause for extreme celebration--before announcing a day later that "superior forces" had pushed his guys out when it became clear that they couldn't be in those bergs. The Ukr army spokesman denied either event had happened.
Another update on the situation is that the main transit power station for connecting the Luhansk power grid to the rest of the Donbas' and Ukrainian power grid was hit by rebel fire (being on the Ukr army side of the lines). The Schastya plant is trying to make up the difference, but can't--and that's with numerous power lines down from last night's fighting.
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