After Rewarding Putin, Now They Are Investigating Smolensk

Disturbing findings about Smolensk experts of National Prosecutor’s Office

Published April 16, 2019

In 2017 the Hungarian University of Debrecen awarded an honorary doctoral degree to Vladimir Putin. The school works closely with many Russian universities and with the powerful Kremlin nuclear consortium Rosatom. The Russian foundation "Russkiy Mir" responsible for spearheading Kremlin’s propaganda, and headed by the former KGB deputy, has been operating on its campus for two years. Now, experts from Debrecen are entrusted by the Polish Prosecutor's Office with the investigation of the 2010 Smolensk crash.

These are not all of the shocking findings of "GP." In addition to Hungarian experts, the second group of international experts looking into the Smolensk crash consists of experts from the Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University in the United States. Among them is Theodore Postol - a full-time Kremlin's media commentator specializing in criticism of US and NATO policies, and a staunch apologist and defendant of Russia's interests. Among them is also Goong Chen, professor of Applied and Computational Mathematics, who along with Postol visited Poland last year at the invitation of the investigators from Polish Prosecutor's Office. Gazeta Polska ascertained that Chen is a co-author of the Postel’s report on the chemical attack in Syria, which is consistent with the Kremlin's narrative. A synopsis of this document was sent by Postol to the Russia’s Sputnik News Agency in October 2017 with a request to be provided to Russian diplomats at the UN.

Hungarian Moscow

The portal wpolitice.pl reported recently that the Investigative Team No. 1 in the Chief Prosecutors’ Office just appointed an international team of experts, which will prepare its opinions and findings on the circumstances and causes of the April 10, 2010 air disaster in Smolensk, Russia.

Among the three expert groups is the team of Hungarian specialists associated with the Pharmaflight International Science and Service Center PLC - a research and training center established in 2015 near Debrecen, which operates under the aegis of the university (specifically the Department of Aeronautical Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering). The University of Debrecen offers, among others, paid program with hands-on training which takes place at Pharmaflight (first student enrollments began in 2018). Together with this center, the university also organizes scientific events - in September 2019, the university and Pharmaflight will be, for example, jointly hosting the International Congress of Aviation and Space Medicine. Let us add that Győri Gyula, one of the organizers of the Pharmaflight and a professor at the Department of Aeronautical Engineering at the Debrecen University, leads the Hungarian Smolensk team.

Why were the bets placed on Debrecen Pharmaflight, if it has been in existence for only three years, and has been conducting training activities for only a few months? Was this center chosen because it operates within the University of Debrecen? These questions are justifiable because from among all universities in Europe, only four of them awarded honorary doctoral degrees to Vladimir Putin. These are the Peloponnesian University, Kapodistrias National University in Athens (both in Greece), the University of Belgrade (that is, in the traditionally pro-Russian Serbia) and... University of Debrecen. So, from among hundreds of European colleges, the Smolensk case is to be investigated by an institution that rewards Vladimir Putin?

In 2017, as many as 90% of members of the Senate of the University of Debrecen voted in favor of awarding the honorary doctorate to Putin. Interestingly, the four professors who opposed this nomination were later summoned by the rector of the university, Zoltán Szilvássa, to fall-in, or else. "I would like to inform you that a meeting will be held to examine the background and circumstances surrounding the distancing of the Department [Natural Sciences and Technology] from awarding of honorary doctorate to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin," reads one of the letters quoted by the Budapest Beacon. Let us emphasize that neither the Faculty of Engineering, nor any of its institutes, or establishments protested.

Until 1990, the same city where the University of Debrecen is located, hosted a Soviet air base. The city has an extremely pro-Russian reputation. The university works closely with many Russian schools, including the State Medical Academy in Tyumen, the University of Agriculture in Belgorod, St. Petersburg University of ITMO (short for "Information Technology, Mechanics and Optics”), the Russian State Social University, or the State University of Chuvashia. In April 2017, the "Russian Center" was opened at the Debrecen university with a pump funded by the money from the Russkiy Mir Foundation. It is headed by Vyacheslav Nikonov - grandson of Vyacheslav Molotov, and a historian who worked as an instructor and head of the Department of Ideology in the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party. In 1991-1992 he served as the deputy head of the KGB.

Above all, however, the University of Debrecen works with the Russian nuclear giant Rosatom on the expansion of the Hungarian nuclear power plant Paks. It will cost almost 13 billion Euros, and the vast majority of this money - according to the agreements between Budapest and Moscow - is to be covered by the Russians in the form of loans. In addition, in 2017, the University of Gdańsk, in Poland, signed an agreement with Rosatom establishing a foundation for mutual cooperation, student exchange, and joint scientific and educational projects.

Pharmaflight cooperates directly with the Russians as well. Three years ago, the Russian Kronstadt Group operating in the aviation industry announced the launch of a broad program of modernization of simulators using the latest Aurora-3 system, announcing the names of the centers using software produced by the Kronstadt Group: Moscow’s Skolkovo, St. Petersburg University of Civil Aviation, the Ulyanov Institute of Civil Aviation, the Austrian AMST and the Hungarian Pharmaflight.

The Mathematician

The second group of experts associated with the American Texas A & M University is headed by prof. Goong Chen, specialist in applied and computational mathematics. He visited Poland a year ago at the invitation of the Chief Prosecutor's Office. "In the course of consultations, [international] experts were acquainted with the current course of the investigation,” announced Polish investigators. In one of the media statements Goong Chen admitted that the Prosecutor's Office provided him with confidential information regarding the Smolensk investigation.

Gazeta Polska confirmed that this mathematician is a close friend of another expert of the prosecutor's office, Theodore Postol, who is the author of a widely circulated Kremlin propaganda report on a chemical attack in the Syrian city of Khan Shaykhun in 2017. After the attack - let us recall - on the order of Donald Trump, United States bombed the Syrian military base of Ash-Sha'irat. According to the international community (including the USA, Great Britain, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, France, Israel, non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch), the forces of the pro-Russian Syrian President Bashar al-Assad were responsible for the attack with the use of toxic Sarin gas in Khan Shaykhun.

Postol challenged these findings, suggesting that Assad had nothing to do with the crime, and the anti-government groups in Syria were behind the attack. He also added his political analysis to the political comments, for example that "Trump's actions [were accompanied by a serious risk of confrontation with Russia].”

How could Postol, who is a physicist and specialist in the field of science and technology, prepare a report requiring a thorough knowledge of computational mathematics and chemistry? It turned out that the mathematical analysis of Postol's work was done by Goong Chen.

Describing the Postol-Chen report, the Russian agency Sputnik wrote: "The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the United Nations has used fabricated evidence in its Joint Investigation Mechanism (JIM) study on the April chemical attack in the Syrian city of Khan Shaykhun; This undermines the reputation of international organizations, told the Russian agency Sputnik professor of science, technology and security policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Theodore A. Postol.”

Five days before the text appeared in Sputnik, on October 25, 2017, Postol wrote to the editor Grebenkina from the Sputnik agency: "Thank you very much for your questions about Russia's fully justified critical remarks regarding the use of the OPCW Joint Investigative Mechanism by the UN authorities [ ...] I hope that you will consider providing the information I present here to the representatives of the Russian delegation to the UN." Postol cited the photographs, referring to the ‘computational analysis made by two of my colleagues from Texas A & M University: prof. Goong Chen and dr. Chung Gu, which clearly shows how the crater was created in "Khan Shaykhun." Shortly thereafter, on December 1, 2017, Goong Chen delivered a lecture about his "discoveries" at Academia Sinica, the largest state university in Taiwan, suggesting that the crater and other evidence pointing to the UN as guilty of Assad-supported Russia are the result of "staging" ("The scene was staged”).

It should be remembered that Postol and Chen who will be investigating the Smolensk crash - were assisted in writing the famous Syrian report by Maram Susli, a blogger living in Australia known in the circles of popular conspiracy theorists. For several years, in the social media as well as in Kremlin’s Russia Today, and Iranian state television - she has been attacking the US and defending pro-Russian regimes. She claims that the Ebola virus raging in 2013-2016 in West Africa is a biological weapon created by the Americans. She also writes that the September 11, 2001 attack was a job of American secret services. According to her opinion, the only countries not controlled by Jewish bankers are North Korea, Iran, Syria and Cuba; only Russia and Vladimir Putin fight against terrorism. Two months ago, Susli posted a video on Twitter of "Ukrainian workers" who were to say: "We are Russian women. We do not understand this conflict.”

Postol is forever faithful

"GP" had sounded several warnings about Theodor Postol before. Unfortunately - to no avail. Together with prof. Chen and the Hungarian university which honored Putin and cooperate with Moscow - he will play a key role in the next stage of investigating the Smolensk tragedy.

This new expert of the Prosecutor's Office for the Smolensk investigationhas been engaged for years in fighting the idea of building, in Central and Eastern Europe, an anti-missile defense shield – the project of utmost importance for the security of Poland. In 2015, in an interview with the Moscow agency Sputnik, Postol said: "There is no military reason to deploy rockets in Europe. It's stupid from a military point of view." At the beginning of 2019, in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, he explained that the deployment of missile defense systems in Poland and Romania equipped, for example, with Tomahawks would pose a threat to Russia. This text was reprinted on its official website by the Russian Council for International Affairs.

When in 2016 the US Department of Defense decided to expand the funds allocated for NATO-related programs, Postol condemned this decision. He told Sputnik that this was "a provocation based on the original sin of NATO enlargement, which led to an easily predictable collapse of relations between Russia and the West." He also stated that the North Atlantic Alliance "is a greater threat to itself and Western Europe than to Russia." In 2016, in an interview with Russia Today, Postol justified the aggressive Russian rhetoric of war, saying: "I can understand that the political authorities in Russia believe that they must respond to what they perceive as the intimidation plans." In another conversation with Russia Today Postol emphasized: "I can see why Russians find it so difficult to accept the statement that the Cold War is over, because Russia is not treated as a friend, or potential ally.”

When after 2016, Norway - more and more afraid of the Russian aggression - intensified its efforts to join NATO's anti-terrorist system, Theodore Postol sounded alarm. In an interview with the Norwegian public broadcaster Norsk Rikskringkasting he threatened that "Norway will be drawn into conflict between great powers.”

And when US President Barack Obama announced that the United States would respond to organized cyberattacks by Russian hackers, Postol told Sputnik: "I think this is another serious and unjustified escalation of the empty, but very dangerous rhetoric of the American side aimed at Russia." Adding that the American media demonized Russia, Postol said: "The attitude of the West [in the matter of Russia] is unforgivably reckless. I have reasons to believe that President [Obama's allegations regarding Russian hackers] are based on uncertain speculations and conclusions.”

Source: Grzegorz Wierzchołowski, GP

Photo: niezalezna.pl