Letter to Director Gabbard

March 28, 2025


The Honorable Tulsi Gabbard
Director of National Intelligence
Office of the Director of National Intelligence
Washington, D.C. 20511


Dear Director Gabbard,

In this letter we would like to draw your attention to Flight MH17, which was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. Three days later, the then Secretary of State, John Kerry, appeared on CNN, Fox, ABC, NBC and CBS, stating that the US intelligence community concluded that the missile which shot down the passenger plane was launched from an area controlled by the pro-Russian rebels. 

The US government has never provided the satellite data to the Dutch Public Prosecution Service, which later led the criminal investigation into the shooting. In 2020, relatives of the victims wrote a letter to the US ambassy in The Hague calling for the data to be provided, so that the Public Prosecution Service could present it to the District Court in The Hague which handled the criminal case against four suspects. Their request was not granted.

The only cooperation the US authorities provided was a briefing given to a representative of the Public Prosecution Service and a memorandum provided to the Public Prosecution Service in 2016. That memorandum was prepared on behalf of the DNI by Kenneth R. Stolworthy. The memorandum reads: 

“At the time that flight MH17 dropped out of contact, the US intelligence community detected an SA-11 surface-to-air missile launch from approximately six kilometers south of the town of Snizhne in eastern Ukraine.” 

At that time “six kilometers south of the town of Snizhne” was rebel held territory. That would indicate culpability of the pro-Russian rebels in the downing of MH17. 

In 2002 the Dutch lawyers for one of the four accused, Oleg Pulatov, concluded from the memorandum that the observed launch could not possibly have been from the missile that brought down MH17. After all, a missile cannot be launched and simultaneously knock a target off the radar: a missile takes time to reach its target. According to the Dutch National Aerospace Laboratory NLR the Buk missile that hit MH17 must have traveled for about 32 seconds, if it was launched six kilometers south of the town of Snizhne. So, the launch that the US intelligence community observed cannot have been from the missile that hit MH17. 

We therefore appeal to you to provide more clarity on what exactly the US intelligence community observed and concluded. We know the exact time that the missile hit the plane. This can be concluded from the time that the Flight Data Recorder and the Cockpit Voice Recorder stopped recording.  We also know the exact time that the aircraft disappeared from the Russian radar. But we do not know the exact time when the US intelligence community recorded the missile launch. Can you please release this information, and indicate the precise flight path of the missile? 

Can you also tell us whether the US intelligence community saw just one missile launch south of Snizhne, or also another missile launch, one that occurred before MH17 dropped out of contact, and if so, when this missile was launched, from what location and where it went? 

It is possible that missiles were fired from two different locations, one from rebel-held territory and the other from Ukrainian-held territory. The Ukrainians had the same SA-11 missiles as the Russians. According to Dutch military intelligence service MIVD, some Ukrainian SA-11 systems were present in eastern Ukraine around the time of the crash. Many residents have witnessed that they heard more than one explosion. 

Thank you for your attention. We look forward to your reply. 

Sincerely,

Eric van de Beek Thierry Baudet
(author of two books about MH17 trial) (Member of Parliament, President of Forum for Democracy