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[ominous music]

This is a BBC news special.

A Malaysian passenger plane
with around 300 people on board

has crashed close to the
Ukrainian border with Russia.

There are unconfirmed reports
that it was shot down.

The Malaysian airliner
had been flying normally

without problems and...

An American journalist
has been beheaded

by ISIS terrorists.

A video showing
the horrific killing

was released on the internet
a short while ago,

along with a message
to the United States...

Devastation in the rebel-held
Sucari neighborhood of Aleppo

on Wednesday.

Activists blame a barrel bombing
by government forces.

At least 100 people
have been killed

The flight would have been
at cruising altitude,

which means it would be
at about 32,000 feet.

For someone to mistake
that for a hostile aircraft

between Russia and Ukraine
would be difficult.

It's difficult to see

how this could just be
a mistake.

This is nonsense.

There are
no Russian armed forces

anywhere in the east of Ukraine.

A horrific scene
in Charlottesville, Virginia.

A white nationalist rally
that descended

into deadly violence and chaos.

The image is just coming in.

Unfortunately,
the Russian-backed separatists

who control the area

continue to block
the investigation.

The separatists
are removing evidence

from the crash site

all of which begs the question,

what exactly
are they trying to hide?

We have to make sure
that the truth is out.

[theme music]

Before any official
investigation

into the tragedy
of flight MH17 is complete

the website of one citizen
journalist claims

to have connected the dots.

Bellingcat is run
by Eliot Higgins,

a 36-year-old laid-off
office worker.

Among Bellingcat's
favorite tools

are YouTube and Google Earth.

Something Higgins used
to back his claim

that Russia
faked satellite images

to blame the Ukrainian army
for the MH17 crash.

When I was younger
I was super, super shy.

When I was at University,

I couldn't even leave the house,
I was so shy.

Terribly nerdy as it sounds,

I was really into computers
and gaming.

I was very withdrawn as well,
so I got into computers.

It's what
that kind of people do.

I used to play these games a lot
and I would like join a group.

Inevitably I would end up
the leader of the group,

because I would really get
into stuff.

I've always been like that.

I have this kind of
obsessive tendency

where if I like something

I'll really get into it.

Growing up, my interests
were very counter culture.

So, I was very interested

in the way US foreign policy
affected the world.

Of course we have things
like the first

and second Iraq war,

and you know,
all the mess America was making.

When social media became popular
in 2007, 2008,

we had smartphones

and those two technologies
combined with apps

that allow you
to take photographs

and share it immediately
with the entire world.

The fact that you could do
that was revolutionary.

-[bell dings]
-[indistinct announcement]

This is something
I've been working on

for a presentation

it's about the white
nationalist's violence.

-Whose streets?
-Our streets.

-Whose streets?
-Our streets.

-Whose streets?
-Our streets.

There was this image taken,
showing him attacking that guy.

So we wanted to know
who this could be.

We looked for all the
photographs and videos

of these white nationalists
and we found this guy.

Now, he has certain
similarities,

for example he has
a very similar shirt on.

So, we looked for more images
and photographs

and we found this photograph

which appeared
to be the same person.

So we compare him

and the one thing
that stands out

is the pattern of moles
on his neck

is exactly the same.

What we started doing is looking

at the people
who stood around him.

Because what happens

is some of these people
turn up in tweets

by this account
"Yes, You're Racist,"

where they actually name
the individuals in question.

They show they have
social media accounts.

What we're able to do is go
to these social media accounts

and look through the people
they follow.

And we come across
this guy here.

If we go to his page,

we can look
at the photographs he's got

and again you can start
seeing matches.

So you can see the moles
on his neck

match the pattern
of moles there.

So, you know, he appears
to have been committing a crime.

So, what we're trying to do

is see if we can ID
the people behind these.

And this kind of work

is becoming more and more
interesting

to law enforcement.

I originally
was going to come here

and talk to you
about a revolution

but with the discussion
of the post-truth world,

it feels like
a counter revolution now.

And it's been a very peaceful
and quiet revolution,

thanks to smartphones,
thanks to social media...

and thanks to the vast amount
of information

now available online to anyone.

And this revolution has allowed
a new field to grow.

I like to call this field

"online open source
investigation."

We can use it to influence
the powerful,

we can use it to challenge
the powerful

and we can bring them
to accountability as well.

Now, I started Bellingcat

because I wanted to teach people
how to do this.

It used to be that the tools
of media production

were in the hands of the media.

And with the rise
of the internet,

that is no longer true.

With vlogging starting in 2000

and social media starting
in 2004

and YouTube,
which I think started in 2005,

now the tools
for media production

have been given to the people
formerly known as the audience.

Historians will look back,

I think, and recognize
that this was the time

almost 20 years
after the internet emerged

where the kind of realities

of our networked environment
became true.

In human history,

when we've had these moments
of significant change

whether it was
the printing press,

or radio, or television,
we've had similar moments of...

[gasps]
Oh, my goodness,

what is it going to mean?

And we're there right now,
but we do have to recognize

the seriousness
of what this means

because ultimately,

this technology
is a reflection of humans.

So, for the last five years
we've been terrified

about artificial intelligence
and robots.

The horrible truth is,

the thing that might
bring us down

is technology
that simply reflects

our worst aspects back
to each other.

[keyboard clanking]

I'd just been looking at Twitter

and I noticed there was
a new ISIS video.

And someone said
there's James Foley on it.

This is James Wright Foley,

an American citizen
of your country.

I just felt like I needed
to do something

so that's why I thought I'd see

if I could find out
where this had taken place.

The first thing I noticed

was that it was in this dry
and arid area

but in the distance
you can actually see

a very green and fertile area.

And if you're familiar
with the terrain around Raqqa

which is obviously
the stronghold at this point

you could see this valley with
this river running through it,

and it's very green

but the foothills around it
were very dry and arid.

These are obviously very dusty,
hilly areas

but you can see,
in the distance,

all these individual trees.

So when you look at Raqqa,

this is exactly
what you're seeing.

You're seeing this green valley
with these hills.

I basically just went through
and followed this line,

looking for similar terrain.

You can see here
it's very, very rough indeed.

So I thought
it was a likely location.

Then I started looking

at all these little
background details,

like these trees and the road

and comparing them to imagery

that was visible
from that line of sight.

Once I had a possible location,

I published it to kind of see
if I could generate a discussion

around where this could
have happened.

Then, several months later,
that's why I started Bellingcat.

Bellingcat doesn't have
institutional support.

They don't have a big building
at The Hague or Brussels,

where they do their work.

They actually publish
very detailed analyses

and many of them
are volunteers living at home.

They don't have security
and so what they do

is really risk a great deal
to find out the truth

in very complex situations

that include
major global players.

[explosion]

[in Russian]

[truck engine rumbles]

[in English] How I got involved
in Bellingcat was that

I had been following
the Ukraine conflict

pretty much since the beginning.

And then, when MH17
was shot down, I got curious.

Because passenger planes
fly very high.

They fly, or cruise,
at altitudes of 10 kilometers.

I hadn't seen weapon systems
that could reach that high.

So previously what I'd seen

is these
shoulder-launched missiles...

that could only reach
a couple of kilometers,

but nothing that could down
a passenger airliner.

There were these pictures
of all the parts of the aircraft

that were starting to appear
on social media.

What I wanted to understand was,

could we actually see any damage
on the aircraft parts itself

that could indicate
what brought it down?

That's how I got talking to,
then, other people.

There was Eliot, there was Aric,
then Timmi came along as well.

We sort of naturally started,

I suppose,
talking to each other.

Then at some point Eliot

reached out
to all of us and said,

"Hey, do you want
to actually do something

in a more coordinated fashion?"

That's how we sort of ended up
as the core Bellingcat team.

I was at work here
in Charlotte at a bank.

My job was to monitor events
that were going on

and try to see
if there's any danger

or risk to the bankers,
employees

or travelers or whatever.

I focused a lot on Ukraine
and Russia at work

because I studied
Russian literature

in graduate school.

And I did a lot of
moderating things to do

with Russia and Ukraine.

And I remember seeing some news

that a plane was shot down
over Ukraine.

At first I thought,
oh, it's no big deal,

another plane
has been shot down.

But soon, obviously,
as everyone knows,

we realized it wasn't
a Ukrainian plane.

Then I, like everybody else,
was wondering what was going on.

And I was looking
at the online evidence

around the shoot down.

There were a handful
of photographs and videos

that emerged on the day
of the shoot down

and then more
that would come later on.

When you think about
like the Lockerbie bombing,

or the US shoot down
of the Iranian plane

you know, all these
other disasters,

there's really not much to go on

except for what you see
on the news.

But with MH17
it was so different

because there was
this huge digital trail.

I remember
I was watching social media

and I was watching
a few different feeds of news.

I remember I had Rossiya 1,

which is the main
Russian state news channel,

and LifeNews.

The LifeNews channel,

I remember, the stream
specifically was horrific.

They were showing the bodies,
it was awful.

They showed people
riffling through.

It was just
a horrible, horrible scene.

And, of course you want to know
who did this

why did it happen and how
can you bring some relief

and, you know, justice to it?

We know the trajectory.
We know where it came from.

We know the timing
and it was exactly at the time

that this aircraft disappeared
from the radar.

We also know
from voice identification

that the separatists
were bragging

about shooting it down
afterwards.

So there's a stacking up
of evidence here

What I really wanted
to first understand.

What was it shot down with?

Because that then would lead
to the "who did it".

A couple of weeks before MH17
was shot down,

there was a report
on Voice of Russia

that the rebels in east Ukraine

had taken over this Buk
missile base in Donetsk.

Ans when I first thought that,
okay, it's conceivable

since Ukraine does
also have Buks

and the rebels,
if they had access to the Buks,

they could have access
to people as well

who could operate those systems.

But it was only then,

after a little while
of first learning

that the same missile launcher

had been actually seen
in Russia.

That's really when things
started clicking together

and the Russian role
started becoming apparent.

[light music]

[in German]

[in English] The way citizen
journalism investigations

are trusted is different
than professional journalism.

In professional journalism,

you have the reputation
of the BBC behind you, right?

Uh, and the standards
of an institution

are the basis for trust.

In citizen journalism
it works differently.

Trust is generated
not by the brand name

or the glory of the institution.

It's generated
through transparency.

And so, in citizen
journalism investigations

what the journalist says is not,
"Trust me, I'm with the BBC."

It's, "Don't believe me?
Here's the evidence."

[explosion]

Syria's deadly civil war is now
even more dangerous

with both the US and Russia
launching air strikes,

but supporting different sides.

The core of what I've been doing
with Bellingcat,

is human rights activism.

With some of my colleagues,
we started a Facebook group

called the Syrian Uprising
Information Centre.

In the beginning, 2011,

we were just locating
were the peaceful protests

were coming from.

But that turned into pinpointing
human rights violations

and that work led, eventually,

working on doing open source
analysis with Bellingcat.

So, if we go from the beginning,

you see it's like
the first moment of the attack.

You see four rockets going
into the market.

We are trying to see
if it is a fake video.

Maybe from a different country.

Maybe in Syria,
but in a different time.

We have seen
this has happened a lot.

[in English]
If you remember the director

who filmed a boy
that has been killed.

It was just a film
that they were doing,

in a different country, even.

But it got a lot of traction
when people used it as,

"Look at what's happening
in Syria." Right?

But actually
it wasn't happening in Syria.

So we really need to make sure

that whatever we're looking at,
it's clearly verified.

Uh, it's not just propaganda.

As human beings we are
very susceptible to information

that reinforces our world views.

We like to think that people

have a rational relationship
to information.

We do not.

We have an emotional
relationship to information.

So when we see overt lies
or falsehoods

or manipulated video

it's very easy as academics
or researchers

or journalists to say,

"Why is this working?"

How can we see
foreign governments

put out false information
and get away with it?

Because they are successful
because humans don't want to do

the necessary checks.

Because if you receive
information

that reinforces
your world view...

you've got no interest
to check it.

[computer beeps]

[explosion]

So, you can see
there's four bombs falling

from the sky and then impacting.

Three of them in pretty much
the same place

and then the fourth hits
a little bit further out.

So there we see
the bigger impacts here

and then there's one further
down here.

It's hard to say
what exactly it is

but I wouldn't exclude
either the Syrians

or the Russians from this one.

But in addition to this,
it would be really good to see

the actual remnants
of the bombs themselves.

Because that then gives you
more data

about what exactly
the bombs were

and then that can tell you
who possibly did the strike.

Veli-Pekka was part
of the Finnish military.

Because they are more focused

toward Russia
than other nations are,

he has a better understanding
of military doctrine,

I suppose you could say.

He has a good analytical eye.

He picks up the ideas
about open source investigation

and verification and geolocation
very, very quickly.

He had this persistence
and obsessiveness

that is kind of needed
in an investigator

and the stability
that you also need.

[computer beeps]

The work
that Hadi and Bellingcat

have been doing, is critical.

They're grabbing, obviously,
large quantities of information

much of which can disappear
quite quickly from the internet

and preserving it,
so that we have it

for future accountability
mechanisms.

One of the things that Hadi

and the Syrian archive
have been doing

and we've been really trying
to support them in that process

is figuring out how do you code,

label and tag
all of these videos

so that if, for example,
a legal investigator later says,

"We want to investigate
this particular crime,

on a particular date
and a particular place"

they can pull up
that information quickly,

they can explain how they got it

so it's transparent
for a court of law

and can then actually send it on

to the investigators in a way
that makes sense.

Hadi and I have been working
a lot together on ideas

about how open source
information

can be archived
and actually be used

and stored in a useful way.

Hadi, you know, he's lived this.

This is his home,

these are his friends
and family.

He is part of that community
of Syrians

who are living abroad,
working on this.

So, he really cares
about these issues

and cares about doing it right

especially when it comes
to the work

we're doing on justice
and accountability.

[church bell dings]

Timmi is helping
to understand better

what happened
in the impact sites.

So what I'm asking Timmi
is if he can create

a 3D structure of this location

so then we can go in detail

and see what happened
in each building.

[in German]

[chuckles]

[indistinct chatter]

[in English] I've got an update
from Timmi and Hadi

about the location
of the bombing.

The big challenge
for journalists is just,

if you think about the work
that Bellingcat is doing

the amount of time that it takes
to go through this.

So we have people on their
free time in the evenings.

You know, they're spending
hours and hours

going through this.

Uh, I see pressure

with many traditional
journalist outfits

is that they're getting
so tight on resources

and time these days
that it's hard for them

to actually spend enough time
to go through all of this

and analyze it in the way
that the volunteer groups can.

In the case of Syria itself,

there's more hours
of the conflict online

than hours
of the conflict itself.

It's the most documented
conflict in history.

I don't see big news agencies
doing any work like this.

This is the market one month
before the attack.

There are more than 60 people
who were killed.

It's just a market.

I mean,
there is no military airbase.

It's not near the frontline.

It was attacked
by an air strike.

Why would you attack civilians?
I mean, what is the reason?

[engine rumbles]

The delegations stating
unfounded allegations

against my country

are depending
on amateur bloggers and videos.

Among one of them
is a very famous British citizen

called Eliot Higgins

whose online inputs
about the situation in Syria

are intensively
yet mistakenly adopted

by many media outlets
as well as governments.

According to Wikipedia,
and I quote.

Eliot Higgins, in 2012,
"when he began bloggin

the Syrian situation"

was an unemployed finance
and admin worker

who spent his days taking care
of his child at home.

Higgins' analysis
of Syrian weapons

began as a hobby,

out of his home
in his spare time.

Higgins has no background
or training in weapons

and is entirely self-taught.

He said,
"Before the Arab spring,

I knew no more about weapons
than the average Xbox owner.

I had no knowledge beyond
what I had learned

from Arnold Schwarzenegger
and Rambo."

Never been to Syria,
doesn't speak a word of Arabic

and he conducts
his profound research

from the comfort of his armchair
in his home.

[water sloshes]

Even at school I was really,
crushingly shy.

So how did I get over that?

It's being passionate
about something

and then doing stuff
that is outside

of your comfort zone.

And partly because of
my wife telling me to stop

being shy
about stuff all the time,

and that helps.

[baby mumbles]

She came to England
to study English

and be an au pair,

then we met
and we just started dating.

Uh, also, going to Turkey
to propose

to someone was quite a,

for me
an amazingly bizarrely brave

and insane thing to do.

So that's when
I kind of started to change

and then this came along

and then I had
to start doing stuff

that really was outside
my comfort zone.

[indistinct chatter]

When I first started coming up
with the idea

for the website
at the start of 2014

I was trying to think
of a clever name.

And I basically failed.

I was saying,

"I'll call it the Open
Source or Investigation Online",

crap names.

And they were all taken anyway.

Either way, thank God they were,

because I probably
would've picked one.

So, I was stuck
and I contacted my friend.

He's a playwright, so I thought.
He knows words, so I'll ask him.

Quite quickly he said.
"What about Belling the Cat?"

A mouse town
was recently visited by a cat.

Since then, all of the mice
haven't had any peace.

The mice decided
to be rid of this cat.

-No cat.
-No cat.

I have an idea.

How about putting a bell around
the cat's neck?

How about you bell the cat
as you seem to be

the one with the great idea?

[mumbles]
Me? No, no, no, I can't.

Even the greatest ideas
are nothing

when they can't be done.

So, what we're doing
at Bellingcat

is we're teaching people
how to bell the cat.

That's all you gonna eat.

It's your favorite,
isn't it Ella?

Cashew nuts?

Phase 0, in a way,
was how the internet used to be

before social media
and smartphones.

To share a photograph
with someone

you had to upload it up
to a site

and put a link in a forum.

If someone read that forum
they would see the photograph.

That's kind of
when I started getting involved,

when I was doing my blogging.

And that was the period up
until 2014

where NGO's and journalists
were becoming interested.

In part because of
what I was doing.

Now what's happening
is policy makers

are getting
a lot more interested in this.

Governments,
intelligence, military.

Because we're going out there
in this period

and challenging
the Russian government directly

with evidence
that they can't refute.

We're making them look bad,
we're challenging

the narrative
they're trying to push.

That moved towards
the fourth period, in 2017

where we're now thinking
about this

for justice and accountability.

So, Phase 5
is when we'll actually be

in court
with this kind of thing.

So, this is the photograph
of the Buk that shot down MH17.

This is taken about four hours
before the shootdown.

When we look at this,

we can see a few things
that are pretty obvious.

Like, we have the Buk
right here,

in the back of a white Volvo

with a red low-loader trailer
behind it.

Also, we have, here, the Jeep.

If we look at other videos
of this convoy,

we can find the same vehicles
in each one.

So for example, right here,

this is the white Volvo carrying
the Buk.

And here you see the same Jeep
that we saw in the photograph

along with a video taken
two days prior

accompanying a number of Russian

and separatists' tanks

through eastern Ukraine
to Donetsk.

This video was taken

on the day
of the MH17 shoot down,

five hours
before the shoot down.

You can see one
of the most important details.

Is on this Buk we can see

one, two, three, four missiles
on the Buk

that shot down MH17.

Five hours
before the shoot down.

If we look at a video filmed
the next morning

around 5:00 or 6:00 in Luhansk
this missile was missing.

There's only three missiles.

We know what happened
to that missile.

There are many ways
to know exactly

when and where this video
was taken.

One reason or one way we know,

is that at the end of this video
we see fuel prices.

If we look at historical data

of what the fuel prices
were on the day

of the MH17 shoot down
and compare

they were the exact same prices
that we see right here.

So we know exactly
when the video was taken.

Also, there is even
a satellite image

showing the same vehicle
in Makiyivka.

The satellite image
is on Google Earth,

anyone can find it.

It was taken at 11:08 a.m.
on the day of the shoot down.

With Google Earth
if we just go to Makiyivka

this is the gas station,
right here.

Where the Buk passed by.

If we go further on,

we can go and view
like a time machine.

We can go back to the day

of the MH17 shoot down
in Google Earth

and look at the satellite image
that was taken on that day.

July 17th, 2014.

We can look here
and see this is the same.

These are the vehicles.

Here. If you zoom in here,
very closely

It's hard to see

'cause the resolution
isn't very good.

But this video was taken

just about 45 seconds

before this satellite image
was taken.

It's a cosmic luck,
coincidence that this happened.

You see right here,
you see the white cabin

of the Volvo truck
carrying the Buk.

This is the Buk right here.

The one way we know
is the shadow being cast

by the Buk is quite large
and it matches exactly

with what a Buk
should look like.

If we go through, we can match
every single element in here.

Even back at the gas station

the arrangement of the cars
at the gas station.

You see here this white car
with the door open.

If you go back here,
you can see it here as well.

This is the exact same scene
that was filmed in this video,

just 45 seconds later.

A website calling itself
a resource

for citizen
investigative journalists

is to publish
its own findings today.

Anastasia Churkina looks at

what this information
is based on.

What does it take
to shape public opinion

and be a newsmaker
over the conflict in Ukraine.

finding answers and solutions

which eluded even
the brightest political minds?

Could a cozy couch and a laptop

with internet access
to endless social media posts

be enough to paint
the full picture?

RT went to find the man
behind Bellingcat

for his side of the story.

When a Russia Today

reporter basically tried
to hunt me down in my home town

even though he knew

I wasn't interested
in being interviewed by him

and I wasn't going to meet him.

They turned that
into a whole thing.

I had a week where I had
like five different interviews,

one TV crew
in my house every day.

It was like I won the lottery.

Must have been
for the neighbors.

And I didn't leave,

so they must've wondered
if I murdered someone.

So they came every day,
one of them was CNN.

And CNN did a whole piece on it,
it was a big deal

but they described me
as a stay-at-home Mr. Mom.

Sometimes we use the phrase
"accidental journalists"

for somebody
who happens to be there

when the plane goes down
and takes the photograph.

But this is different
because it's not accidental.

It's intentional.

And they are an increasingly
important category of the public

and people in professions
that touch on this work

should just get used
to their existence.

[in Dutch]

[drone whirs]

[beeps]

[drone whirs]

[in English]
Christiaan is really brilliant.

I hired him because he has

certain language skills
and experience

that other people don't.

He's amazingly good
at geolocation.

He's like,
supernaturally good at it.

If we ever get stuck,
he'll find it in five minutes.

It's like,
amazing how he does it.

[in Dutch]

[people clamoring]

[in English]
I will present in English

because I just know some words.

Um, but welcome everyone here
this morning.

And I'd like to talk about
a very new way of investigating.

And this
is basically investigating

using only digital,

openly available information

and by looking at the
visual clues in the photo.

And this has become known
as the Bellingcat method.

Here we have
the Russian Ministry of Defense.

Their official Twitter account,
as you can see, it's verified.

They say, what they show,
"Irrefutable evidence

that US actually
are covering ISIS combat units."

That they're supporting ISIS.

Let's see where it comes from.

This is a screenshot
from a YouTube video,

which is a game simulator,
a Gunship simulator.

The Russian Ministry of Defense
took a picture,

a screenshot, from a videogame

and they presented it
as evidence.

Which is fascinating,

because why would they present
a videogame still as evidence?

Every country
has a foreign policy.

Every country has reasons
to hope or believe

that certain outcomes

will happen
in different countries.

If you think globally,
some of them are subtle,

some of these are quite clear.

For Russia,
it's in Russia's interest

to destabilize Western-Europe.

It's in Russia's interest
for NATO

to no longer exist.

There are many reasons
why they would enjoy

the European Union to not exist
in the way that it does.

It's on Russia's border.

So if you want to make
these countries

even more unstable

you're flooding
these communities

with disinformation.

[indistinct chatter]

[in Dutch]

[in English]
"A car bomb kills at least eight

in the Baghdad market.
Police and medics.

A car bomb parked
in a shopping street

of a Shi'ite district of Baghdad

killed at least eight people

and wounded
more than 30 others on Sunday

police and medical staff said."

[in Dutch]

[in English] "The latest
parked car bomb kills ten

in Baghdad neighborhood."

[in Dutch]

[explosion]

[people clamoring]

[in English] I've been
a journalist for 50 years

and I have never known
the system of journalism

to be in such a perilous state.

There's hardly any money spent
on training journalists.

There aren't many journalists
with decent jobs these days.

Most of them
are working freelance.

It's very difficult
to earn a living.

Um, big media organizations

don't spend money
on investigative journalism.

They're not sort of
properly representing

the communities they serve.

The contribution
to democracy of good,

reliable, ethical journalism
is diminishing by the day.

Every newspaper that closes,

every radio station
that goes down

every newsroom in TV
that is further constrained

is making journalism weaker.

There's a very small
number of journalists globally

that can do the kind of
forensic verification work

on videos and images

which is why it's very effective

to put out something
that's false

and it often gets used
by mainstream newsrooms

that don't know
how to do the checks themselves.

And so, we need independent
professional experts

like Bellingcat

who can help audiences navigate
this information space.

This is the James Foley
execution video being faked.

They've tried quite hard
to recreate it.

One thing they've done
is they've made sure

they've got wind blowing in.

Do you see
how his clothes are moving?

They've tried quite hard
to make it look really like

the actual execution video.

They want you
to not trust yourself.

In an era of social media,
you want to get clicks.

So, having a headline that says,

"You're not going to believe
that this beheading isn't true"

will get you many more clicks.

Anybody who is making this
is thinking,

"How can I get many people
to look at a video

that might undermine trust
in anything they see?"

But we do have to acknowledge
that many Western countries

have used similar forms
of information warfare

in other countries
around the world.

So, what we're seeing right now
in this focus on Russia

we do have to understand

it gets used
by many other countries.

Anybody who is trying
to find out

what actually happened

and bring it
to the attention of the world,

is doing an important job.

Whether it's their profession
or their passion.

And we should appreciate them
for what they're doing.

We should
also ask questions about

what they're doing so we know
whether to trust it.

That's why transparency
is the method of trust

for this kind of work.

[all cheer]

At the same time
that they're doing their job,

bad actors are doing their job
to try to undermine trust

in any kind of journalism,
any kind of verification.

There are people in the world

who want all forms
of verification to just go away

so they don't have to deal
with them.

They want to be able
to say anything

and have it believed.

This sleazy guy right over here,
from ABC,

he's a sleaze in my book.

The fake media tried to stop us
from going to the White House,

but I'm president
and they're not.

Right now they're winning.

So we need people fighting
against that.

[in Russian]

[in English]
We've been targeted

by cyber-attacks from Russia.

We've been targeted by,

you know, various criticism
in the media.

People have been sent
to track me down

in Leicester by Russia Today.

We had
the Russian Foreign Ministry

and the Russian MOD
criticize our work and attack us

so there are possible dangers
in doing this kind of work.

[in German]

[in English]
Over there behind the fence,

that's the former military base
were I served from 1998 to 1999.

We actually
had the Buk system there.

This is the Buk-M1,

so the missile launcher part
of the system.

This is a similar one
to the system

we saw now in Ukraine
when MH17 was shot down.

Here we have the missile.

This is where the warhead
would be.

So this is actually
the part that explodes.

This has layers
of metal fragments on it

different sized metal fragments
that are actually

then the destructive component

that then actually
brings down the aircraft.

And so the other parts here,

so there's the guidance
part there

that actually guides
the missile to the target.

It can maneuvre,

it can actually move in the air
if the target is moving.

When the radar
is illuminating the target,

then that seeker head

is actually guided
to that radar beam.

[whooshes]

[sighs]

First time I'm sitting
inside of a Buk,

so that's exciting.

So which one do I push
to fire a missile?

[machine whirrs]

Now put yourself
in the situation of that crew

that shot down the aircraft.

Based on the information
that's out there,

the crew crossed over
into Ukraine the previous night.

So, did they get a lot of sleep?

You know, they were travelling
to the place.

And sort of that was actually
their mental state?

Were they just focused
on that they'd get a call

and then they shoot down
the first thing

that they pick up on the radar?

-[machine whirrs]
-[beeping]

Hard to say. Hard to get
inside people's heads.

[whooshes]

We mapped out and found

all the different sightings
of this convoy.

It's clear that it left
from Kursk to the border.

In Kursk there's only
one anti-aircraft brigade,

which is the 53rd
anti-aircraft brigade

which made it
the most logical answer

for which brigade
this Buk belonged to.

Then we went through
social media profiles for people

who serve
in this military unit in Kursk.

Finding profiles of soldiers
is super easy.

You just go to a social media
site like Contactia,

which is the Russian Facebook.

There's this filter,
you can say,

"only people who list
their military service

as this military unit."

You just type
in the military unit number

for the 53rd brigade

and say they started service
in 2013 or 2014.

Then you have a list
of 20, 30, 50 soldiers.

And there you go.

Of those profiles
that you go through

a lot of them posted photographs

and videos of being
in the convoy

that went from Kursk
to the Ukrainian border.

In some of them
you can actually see the Buk

that shot down MH17
in the background.

They even posted them
standing next to road signs

with the name of the city
that they were in.

So you can track them
pretty easily,

because, you know,
they're 19, 20, 21-year-old kids

who are kind of off
on a trip, right?

To the border.

One of the sources
of information

is not just
from the soldiers themselves

but from the people
close to them

who receive information
from the soldiers.

Maybe this information
is too sensitive,

they feel,
to post on their private pages

but, within these
trusted communities,

among other wives,

mothers and girlfriends
of soldiers

they'll share this information

because they feel like
maybe the world isn't watching.

There's lots of these groups.

It's not just like
there's one site

but here's one of them,

it's called Mama Soldata,
which is "soldier's mother".

And one of these posts
that one of the mothers

of one of the soldiers posted
was on June 23rd 2014

which was the day
that the convoy left from Kursk

on its way
to the Ukrainian border.

And she wrote...

Excuse my awful accent,
but it means,

"Today I accidentally found out
my son didn't tell me,

that our boys
weren't sent to the field,

but instead
to the Rostov Oblast"

which is on the border,
to the border of Ukraine.

So here, she said even though
the sons may not be saying

"we're going to the
Ukrainian border"

on their Contactia pages,

the mothers, wives
and girlfriends, they knew.

They were talking much more
openly about this stuff

because it concerned them,
obviously, very personally

and they didn't have
the same stringent

or expected requirements
of secrecy,

like you had in the military.

There aren't going to be
any consequences

for them leaking information
or whatever.

Ladies and gentlemen,
welcome to this press conference

of the Joint Investigation Team,
in short, the JIT.

The JIT performs
criminal investigation

into the downing of flight MH17

on the 17th of July 2014.

In the JIT, Australia, Belgium,
Malaysia,

the Netherlands and Ukraine

work closely together.

Today, we will make a number
of specific requests

and we'll give you
partial insight

into the progress
of the investigation.

We urgently appeal to everyone,
anywhere in the world.

Who can give
the JIT more information

about the following,

Hello.

[in German]

[in English] So this is a call
between two guys,

they're obviously
speaking Russian.

And one of them is referred to
as Nikolay Fyodorovich.

This other guy
with the higher voice

we don't know exactly
what his role is with MH17,

but obviously
it's something important

if the JIT,
Joint Investigation Team

put out a call for witnesses
about who these guys were.

So there's a few different ways
we can approach it.

Um, we were planning to work
with some Russian partners.

Because there's a lot we can do
through digital,

open-source research

but a lot of avenues
are opened up

when we work
with Russian partners

who have access
to more information.

We're working
with a Russian journalist

who works for The Insider.

He, over a period of weeks,

was phoning up
the person in question

saying that he would like
to do an interview

for a Russian Ministry
of Defense newspaper.

It took him a long time
to set this interview up,

and the guy gave him
20 minutes in total.

So we've got a really
lengthy session of him talking.

Um, and so that's
what we've used

for the analyses.

We have this new theory
about the identity

of this one Russian commander

who's codenamed Delfin.

And right now there is audio
analyses happening of his voice

to try to match him out

to the audio intercepts
that JIT released.

[in Russian]

[in English]
The audio lab in Vilnius

is the one we chose

because it's got a very good
reputation internationally

plus their familiarity
with Russian.

[in Russian]

[clears throat]

[in English]
Hello, this is Eliot Higgins.

Hello, this is Vidmadov speaking
from Vilnius.

Oh, hi. How are you doing?
I'm good, thanks.

So we finished our examination

and our experts came
to the conclusion

that in one conversation
one speaker

highly probably matches.

Okay.

So it's highly probable
that one of them matches.

This is the one that is Delfin?

Probably, yes. Probably, yes.

How sure are you that you
have discovered

the identity of Delfin?

We're very certain
at this point.

We've done open-source analysis

that pointed us
to an individual.

We managed to require
a recording of him speaking.

We sent it off to two separate
forensic analysis laboratories

who came back and told us
it was a match.

But does this prove
that Russia was involved?

Involved how?

Well, we can certainly say

that Russia sent
the missile launcher

that shot down MH17.

And this is part
of a wider effort by Russia

to send military equipment
into Ukraine during 2014

to support separatist forces,

something Vladimir Putin
has denied repeatedly.

Are you saying this was not
a Russian missile?

This was not
a Russian army missile?

[in Russian]

[in English] It's in people's
interests to argue

that Bellingcat
are not trustworthy.

So because of the work
they have done

they have been undermined
by the Russian government,

but also by others.

And so no surprises there.

If you're trying
to discredit somebody

who is pushing out information

that you don't want
to be pushed out,

it's in your interest
to undermine that as a source.

[beeps]

I'm really interested

in how you apply
open-source investigation

to justice and accountability.
That's a big, complex topic.

We're looking
at one of the biggest

and most significant changes

around justice
and accountability

that may have ever occurred.

Because you're talking about
a massive amount

of evidence available online.

Um, and lots of questions
about how they use it.

So, in the summer of 2017,

the International Criminal Court

published their
first arrest warrant

that was based
on videos uploaded

to Facebook showing executions.

[in Dutch]

[in Arabic]

[in Dutch]

[gunshots]

[in Arabic]

[in Dutch]

[in English]
So one of the reasons

why the Werfalli case
is so important historically

in getting legal accountability
for these crimes

is that it was one of the
first ever arrest warrants

issued by the
International Criminal Court

to be based almost solely
on information

that was taken
from social media.

They of course
had other resources

that they were relying upon

but when you read
the arrest warrant,

you see that much of it is based
on information

from Facebook and Twitter.

So this is sort of
a monumental point in time

where we're realizing

that we really need
to be grabbing information

from those platforms
and preserving it.

Because that information
is providing the basis

for legal cases in a way

that quite frankly
never has before.

[quirky music]

So what is happening
with Werfalli right now?

He doesn't really seem to care
about the warrant.

I'm just wondering,
after the arrest warrant,

if it doesn't have
any direct impact on him

then many others will be doing

the same type
of random executions.

I think this is one
of the messages

that they wanted to send also

to people like Werfalli.

He's still walking around,

and maybe he will be
all the time.

This still does give
the message, showing,

okay, this footage can be used
in a legal case.

[indistinct chatter]

[in Dutch]

[in English]
Werfalli was an interesting case

because he handed himself
in to the Libyan authorities.

There were massive protests

by supporters
and he was released.

And they posted a video of him
on Instagram

having a special release cake.

So that was a bizarre thing
to see.

He's currently still wanted
by the ICC,

but he's currently
not in jail anywhere.

I think there's a good chance

Werfalli could be brought
to justice.

I think the video information
that we have against him,

is do damning

and it so clearly ties him
to the potential crimes

that were alleged
have been committed

that it's really hard
to turn away

from that video and say,

"Oh, no,
he doesn't have any ties

to what's taken place."

Um, so the fact
that these videos

are being grabbed,

that they're being preserved

that there are different videos
being collected

by the International
Criminal Court

from what Eliot and Bellingcat
have been grabbing

it creates
a much richer environment

for providing the evidence

that will be needed long term.

Now the challenge
will be getting him into custody

and actually
getting him extradited

so that you can have a trial.

But that's really
a political question

and not a technical one.

[bell ringing]

[in Dutch]

[in English]
When you know people online

and something happens to them
in the real world

and they're suddenly not online

you realize how much
of how you reach out to them

is through, you know,
directly contacting them online.

You know, sending them
a direct message on Twitter

or contacting them on Slack.

Uh, you know,
when we phone him up,

there's no answer on his phone.

So we suddenly felt
very disconnected from him.

Um, considering
the pressure we get

from the Russian government

it's very worrying
when someone just disappears.

[in Dutch]

[in English] One of the
possibilities that is added

to our list of things
that could happen to him

is maybe it has been a State
suddenly trying to do something.

And that is kind of worrying.

You just have to look
at what happened

in the UK in 2018,

with the Skripal poisoning.

[thunder rumbles]

It is now clear that Mr. Skripal
and his daughter were poisoned

with a military-grade
nerve agent

of a type developed by Russia.

This is part of a group
of nerve agents

known as Novichok.

That's obviously very concerning

when even in the UK things
like that are happening.

[beeps]

When you are investigating
what powerful people do

whether they are states
or companies or billionaires

you are vulnerable
in many different ways.

And you could be
investigated yourself.

You can be surveilled.

Uh, you can have
propaganda campaigns

launched against you.

You can get harassed online.

All of that.

And I think the more important
your work is

and the closer it is to power

the closer it gets
to figuring out

what power is doing,

the more risk there is.

[in Russian]

[in Dutch]

[in English]
Based on these specific features

the JIT was able to retrieve

a type of fingerprint
from this Buk-TELAR.

[in Dutch]

[in English] We realize
that the investigation

collective Bellingcat

has already concluded the same
and published it.

[in Dutch]

[in English]
A question for Dutch TV?

-Hi.
-Hi.

Gert-Jan Dennekamp
from Nieuwsuur.

Um... um...

In fact what we heard today

was what you already
investigated

a couple of years back.

Uh, are you happy
with this result?

It's nice to see
that they agree with us.

If they had presented
something completely different,

that would have been
a huge problem.

But not only did we have
the stuff

that we saw on stage today

but we've
had additional material

that further confirms

it's the same missile launcher.

And tomorrow we'll be having
our own press conference

about our new report releasing
as well.

About something
that no one has read about yet,

so that will be big news.

What can we expect tomorrow?

Um, we're not going to say
too much at the moment

because it's very sensitive,
but it involves more details

about who was responsible

and who was behind
what happened with MH17.

-Okay, thank you.
-Thank you.

Good luck tomorrow.

[in Dutch]

[in English] I just received
a message from Julia,

the daughter of Timmi.

"Unfortunately Timmi cannot talk
on the phone at the moment.

He is currently in the hospital.

Should I give him a message
from you?"

I answered her,
"Thanks, Julia, for the message.

We are very worried.

Can I come
to the hospital directly?"

And she wrote back,

"At the moment
a visit would not be good.

He is still recovering

from a severe brain
inflammation.

He was in a coma for a few days,
but he is getting better.

It will take a while,
but he will be well soon.

I'm sorry to be the bearer
of such bad news."

He's doing well.

I mean, he's lucky
and he's doing well.

But it's still very sad news,
you know.

[waves crashing]

It's the first time
we've ever done

a press conference so everything
that is happening here

is the first time
I've tried to do anything.

So, yeah, there's a lot
of moving parts

that I'm very unfamiliar with,

so yeah, it's stressful.

[indistinct chatter]

Welcome, everyone.

Today, Bellingcat

and The Insider
will be releasing details

of a new investigation
into the downing of MH17.

One thing that we must make
clear is that we cannot, today,

or basically at any time

confirm exactly the role
of this person

who goes by the call name Orion.

As published
by the Joint Investigation Team

and earlier by the
Secret Service of the Ukraine

this person is...

Was, the highest-military
ranking officer at the time

in the so-called
Luhansk People's Republic.

He represented

the military intelligence
of Russia at the time

and he was in direct command
and control

of the mercenary,
volunteer operations

of military units and militants
in eastern Ukraine,

in the Luhansk area
of eastern Ukraine.

Oleg Vladimirovich Ivannikov
is the full name,

the full legal name
that we've identified.

He was born
on the 2nd of April 1967

and his nickname is Orion.

[in Dutch]

[in English] Paul Eldering,
Telegraaf, Netherlands.

How can you connect

this guy directly
to the downing of MH17?

For now, the proof
is only circumstantial.

We believe that the JIT
has the proof

that they will publish
in due course.

At this point our reasons
to strongly believe

in the hypothesis he's connected

is based on the fact
that two days

before the shooting down

his voice
was recorded confirming

that they received the Buk

and that they would start
shooting down planes.

That was heard clearly

on a call released
on the 18th of July 2014.

From a chain
of command perspective,

we do not see a hypothesis
in which he's not involved.

Okay, that's everything.

Thank you very much
for your time.

We'll be doing
one-on-one interviews

in five minutes.

Thank you very much.

[bell dings]

[indistinct chatter]

[crowd applause]

Well, thank you
for helping me out.

And yes, well,
it's a big surprise, I think.

[giggles]

The 2017 Innovation Award
goes to Christiaan Triebert.

[all cheer]

Bellingcat has developed
a lot of the talent

that's doing this work now.

And more and more
because there's recognition

of the value
of Bellingcat's work.

There's more and more people
being contacted

who are part
of the Bellingcat team saying,

"Do you want to work
for this organization or that?"

And they are the best
open-source investigators

that I know of.
I really want to hire them

but I can't begrudge them
if they want to go off

and get a job to pay them a wage
rather than volunteering.

It's an online community
of people

that are doing this voluntarily

that are looking into stuff

and challenge bigger actors
in this world.

I think this is
a really great thing

to see developing

and I hope that this
will stimulate it as well.

-Thank you so much.
-Thank you.

[crowd applause]

It would suck certainly
if Christiaan went off

and worked somewhere else.

But I wouldn't begrudge him

because people have to get paid
for the work they're doing.

Okay, where do we start?
You've mentioned that company.

Yes, so they've agree

to give me 80,000 euros
for the first year

and 80,000 for the second year,

and that could possibly go up
to a 100,000 in the second year.

In principle, we would be ready
to consider longer contributions

to Bellingcat.

For me it's just a matter
of making sure

the next six months are covered.

We do not have any flexibility
in the funding

of Bellingcat at the moment.

We're literally at the point

where my bank account
is dropping to nearly zero.

[in Dutch]

[in English]
The two men wanted in the UK

for the Skripal poisoning

insisted they were civilians
on holiday, visiting Salisbury.

But today the real identity
of one of the men was revealed

by the investigations team
at Bellingcat.

He's not, as he claimed,
Ruslan Boshirov,

a fitness instructor

but colonel Anatoliy Chepiga,

a highly-decorated

Russian Military Intelligence
officer.

The Skripal case
that came up recently

was actually not something
we really focused on

until the UK released images

of the suspects along
with pseudonyms.

We were in a position
to get details

of the ID documents from Russia

for those two people.

And we discovered
some interesting things,

for examples, their ID numbers
were nearly sequential.

There's only a couple of spaces
between them.

And we discovered
another GRU officer

who'd been arrested
in Montenegro

also had a very similar number

that was only
about 25 digits different.

So we discovered
this little batch of ID numbers

that seemed to be linked
to GRU agents.

Once we published that,

we had a big reaction
from the media

lots of coverage in Russia,

a reaction
from the Russian government

-Are these people you?
-Yeah, that's us.

What were you doing there?

There's the famous
Salisbury Cathedral.

Famous not only in Europe,
but in the whole world.

It's famous
for its 123-metre spire.

They claimed
there they got there

and the snow was so deep,
they had to turn back.

But it's not a long walk
to Salisbury Cathedral,

you can see it
from the train station.

And when the police released
their photographs,

you had them walking
through Gatwick Airport.

People claimed
that they were going

through the same gate
at the same time

that can reveal...

But again, that just turned out
to be nonsense.

We found images of those gates

at Gatwick Airport
on Google Streetview

and it could prove

that they were walking
side by side.

Not in the same place
at the same time,

as people tried to claim
they were.

But yeah, the reaction has been
absolutely massive.

We've yet again revealed
the identity

of another GRU officer.

The first thing to say
is presumably

they messed up very badly here.

Somebody that is so senior
in Russian Intelligence,

that was a very bad day for him,
wasn't it?

Today has probably been
the worst day of his life.

But, tell me about his record.

You've been through them,
you know what he did.

You know how senior he is.

We've identified
that he's been decorated

to the highest degree in Russia.

He's got the award of

"Hero of the
Russian Federation".

So this is somebody

who did something outstanding
in the eyes of Putin.

And that somebody was sent
on a mission

to poison an ex-colleague.

[in Russian]

[calm music]

[in German]

-[doorbell dings]
-[mumbles]

-[in English] Come on in.
-[all laugh]

Come in.

Hello, Hadi.

Good to see you.

[mumbles]

It's a weird thing

because when you're
working online with people

you don't get too much

of their real personality
coming through.

So it's kind of strange
especially

'cause I've worked
with these people for so long

in a purely online space.

And then you meet them
in person.

So it's kind of a weird...

It's like you really know them,

but at the same time
you don't really know them.

One great reason why people join
big organization

like the BBC
or The New York Times

is the institution has lawyers,

it has professionals

who can help you if you get sued

or who know
what are the safe practice is.

And people operating
on their own

don't have that,
that's one of the risk.

But you could also say
from another point of view

that that's exactly
why they're heroes,

that's exactly
why they're inspiring

because they do this work
'cause they believe in it

and they don't have
a lot of protection

but they do it
because it's important.

We used to live
in an environment

where we have gatekeepers.

So a certain time of night
everybody would sit down

and watch television
at the same time.

we had number of newspapers
or radio outlets

and there were
professional journalist

giving you information
that have been fact check

and sourced professionally.

So when into that landscape

you have people flooding it
with misinformation

and lies and falsehood.

Then what it leads to
is people just saying,

"I'm just gonna step away
from the process."

So your gonna have people
that are not voting,

your gonna have people
turning away

from the mainstream media

and you gonna have people

basically connecting
with one another

with other people
who feel the same way as them.

So, we are not quite there yet,

but it's not gonna take
very long for us

to be in that situation.

I bought Bellingcat T-shirt
for everyone.

Yey!

It's definitely
not because my wife

told me to get rid of them.

[all laugh]

There are no solution,
there's no fix,

there's just endless
struggle ahead.

And if you believe in democracy
if you think it's important

that political
democracy survives

that we have consent
of the governed,

that we have open societies,

that we have civil liberties
for all.

If you think those things
are important

we are entering to a period

where they have
to be fought for.

[all laugh]

Okay, so, um, first of all,

a toast to Timmi,

it's great to see
that he is better

and he is recovering,

so, uh, a toast to Timmi.

-Toast to Timmi.
-Yeah.

Toast.

-Cheers.
-Cheers.

The investigative
website Bellingcat

has identify the second suspect
responsible for poisoning

former Russian spy
Sergei Skripal.

Bellingcat says his name is
Alexander Yevgenyevich Mishkin.

A military doctor with
Russia's Military Intelligence

agency to the GRU.

Bellingcat says he was recruited
by GRU

during his medical studies.

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