Radio Free Europe reports that Oleg Vladimirovich Ivannikov’s atypical voice led to the conclusion, the 51-year-old was “with very high certainty”, as being a missile specialist who was in charge of military operations in eastern Ukraine during an “undercover deployment” by Russia at the time of the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in 2014.
Ivannikov, an officer of the Russian military intelligence agency’s (GRU) Main Directorate of the General Staff, took a lot of precautions to cover up his identity. But he couldn’t hide his “atypical” voice. Ivannikov is sought by the Dutch-based international Joint Investigating Team (JIT) tasked with identifying suspects in the missile attack.
The investigation connected several of the dots based on documentation to lead them to the man with the call sign “Orion.” But it was several phone conversations that helped fill out the picture, including a crucial one on July 13, 2015, that Bellingcat said was “most likely” directly related to the downing of MH17. The route and convoy described in the call matched that of the Russian Buk missile launcher thought to have been used to bring down the passenger aircraft in the skies over Ukraine.
