MALAYSIA is the only one in among an international team compiling a report on the downing of flight MH17 to deny Russian culpability, and investigators in the UK are probing whether Russia has played a role in the public display of disunity, ABC reports.

The report said Investigators at Bellingcat, a London-based reporting website that recently exposed several Russian covert disruptions, suspected the entire Malaysian contingent, or one member of it, had been compromised by Russian spies.

Investigator Christo Grozev said he believed Russian spies could have blackmailed the Malaysians in the MH17 investigative team into disagreeing with the other team members with the threat of “kompromat”, or comprising material, a routine Russian practice to improve negotiated outcomes and sway opinion. 

“I believe they may have done that in Malaysia, look for discrediting information, for what they call kompromat, on politicians, on members of the investigative teams,“Grozev said.

“And then they try to use that to get one member of the team to diverge from the common policy on what they are doing.”

Transport Minister Anthony Loke denied the allegations in a text message to ABC. 

“I categorically and strongly deny the wild accusations against us.”

“I have never been in contact with the Russians. My comments are based on the advice of our Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” he said.

Loke had in May said there was “no conclusive evidence to pinpoint Russia” after international investigators announced the missile which brought down MH17 over Ukraine in 2014 belonged to the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade of the Russian Army.

All 298 people on board the plane were killed.

Grozev called Loke’s denial a “surprising dissension”. Malaysia was the “only country that did not fully endorse the findings of the joint investigation team”.

Questions were raised last week about the global activities of the Russian military intelligence. Security officials at The Hague and in Washington DC announced the identities of seven alleged GRU officers who had attempted to hack into targets around the world. 

The US Department of Justice announced indictments against the seven men, and in its public statement, hinted at the GRU’s activities in Malaysia.

“Data obtained from at least one item of this equipment confirmed its operational use at multiple locations around the world, including … in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in December 2017,” it said.

The UK ambassador to The Netherlands, Peter Wilson, said one of the GRU officers who was expelled from country also conducted “malign activity in Malaysia”.

“This GRU operation was trying to collect information about the MH17 investigation and targeted Malaysian government institutions including the Attorney-General’s office and the Royal Malaysian Police,” he said.

Russia has denied the allegations in information released in the past month by the UK Metropolitan Police, UK Prime Minister Theresa May, the Netherlands’ Defence Minister Ank Bijleveld and the US Assistant Attorney-General John Demers.

At a press conference Tuesday in London, Bellingcat promised more would be revealed in the coming weeks. – October 13, 2018.