The truth about MH17

An interview with Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins

In this episode of the Eurozine podcast ‘Gagarin’, we talk to Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins about the ongoing MH17 trial and the recent OPCW report on the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons in Syria. Higgins describes how disinformation works in both cases, who is behind it and what motivates them, and how Bellingcat remains objective in a hyper-partisan media field.

Gagarin, the Eurozine podcast

Listen and subscribe wherever you get you podcasts

At the beginning of June, Eurozine editor Simon Garnett interviewed Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins about the ongoing trial in Amsterdam of four men charged with murder in connection with the shooting down of MH17 . Higgins also talked about a recent report of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons on chemical weapons attacks at Al Lataminah, northern Syria, in 2017. We were particularly interested in hearing about Higgins’s experience with pro-Russian and pro-Syrian disinformation, and how Bellingcat navigates this hyper-partisan online terrain. The interview was published in Eurozine on 4 June 2020.

Gagarin, the Eurozine podcast is a series of conversations with authors and editors from throughout Europe and beyond. Our 90+ partners are journals, magazines and associates from Belgium to Belarus, from Norway to Bulgaria, publishing literature and analyzing politics, reflecting on culture and bringing diverse voices to a joint conversation.

Please subscribe to the podcast and leave a review so that more people can find us. You can also subscribe to our weekly newsletter, so you’ll always know what’s worth thinking about.

Published 19 August 2020
Original in English
First published by Eurozine

© Eliot Higgins / Eurozine

PDF/PRINT

Newsletter

Subscribe to know what’s worth thinking about.

Related Articles

Cover for: Russia’s orbit

Russia’s orbit

Osteuropa 4/2024

Repression, murder, war: on the logic driving the Putin regime toward ever-greater excesses of violence. Featuring Yuri Andrukhovych on the Russian colonial empire – the only ever to have tried to reconquer a former possession. Also: articles on Navalny, and on what next for Georgia?

Cover for: Welcome to the dictator’s playground

Turkey is no longer a dissident safe haven. High-profile cases of outspoken exiles kidnapped or even killed by spies when in the country attest to the risks. Interviews with Iranian and Russian exiles reveal deteriorating circumstances, from visa refusal to societal racism, police persecution and serious abduction threats, exposing uncertain, shifting political ground.

Discussion