Bellingcat: Russian general identified as key MH17 figure
Date: Dec 9, 2017
Location: Russia
A joint investigation between The Insider and Bellingcat used open source research, investigative journalism, and forensic voice analyan sis to determine the identity of “Delfin”, a key figure sought by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), the Dutch-led criminal investigation into the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 (MH17). The investigation has identified, to a high degree of certainty, Delfin as Colonel General Nikolai Fedorovich Tkachev, currently serving as the Chief Inspector of the Central Military District of the Russian Federation.
On September 28 2016, the Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT), the criminal investigation into the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 – MH17, published a call for witnesses regarding two key individuals in the downing of the airliner: “Delfin” and “Orion”, with the first name and patronymics of (respectively) Nikolai Fedorovich and Andrey Ivanovich.
The Insider and Bellingcat conducted a loint investigation and identified “Delfin” to be RussianColonel General Nikolai Fedorovich Tkachev.
After concluding that Coonel General Tkachev was far the most likely candidate to be Delfin, a longer sample of Tkachev’s voice in the JIT’s call for witness.
The Insider conducted two telephone conversations with Colonel General Tkachev under the cover of writing a story on the Yekaterinburg Suvorov Military School, where Tkachev serves as chairman of the newly established Board of Trustees for school.
Belingcat and The Insider reached out to two organizations to perform forensic voice analysis: athe National Center for Media Forensics at the University of Colorado at Denver (UC Denver) and the Forensic Science Centre of Lithuania (FSCL).
The two organizations acted and reached their conclusions independently of one another.
Both of them identified the voice to be highly likely the one of “Delfin”.
