Dutch-led investigators say Russian military missile shot down flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014

BRUSSELS — A Dutch-led international team of investigators said Thursday that a missile that downed a Malaysian Airlines jetliner over eastern Ukraine in 2014 came from the Russian military, opening the possibility that Dutch prosecutors could sue the Kremlin in connection with the attack that killed all 298 on board.

The long-running inquiry already established that a Russian-made Buk antiaircraft missile downed flight MH17, but it had not previously made a direct link to the Russian military. The Kremlin has always denied involvement in the incident.

Criminal charges against the Russian military or Russia’s government would likely exacerbate tensions between the Kremlin and the West even further, implicating Russian officials in the death of European tourists who were on their way to Kuala Lumpur. The July 17, 2014 incident led to a crushing round of Western sanctions against Russia. 

Since then, the Kremlin has clashed with Europe and the United States on issues ranging from Russia’s support for Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, the attempt to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential elections and the March nerve agent poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain.

The investigative team “has come to the conclusion that the Buk TELAR by which MH17 was downed originated from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade from Kursk, in the Russian Federation,” said Wilbert Paulissen, the head of the crime squad of the Netherlands’ national police. “All of the vehicles in the convoy carrying the missile were part of the Russian armed forces.”

However, they left open the possibility that the missile could have been fired by another party. 

Rebel leaders said at the time they were receiving military assistance from Russia. Investigators have been working to determine whether Russian troops shot the missile or whether it was Ukrainian rebels to whom the antiaircraft system had been supplied. The missile system is technically complex, and Western diplomats have long said they doubted the ragtag rebels would have the had the technical expertise to target the highflying jet.

The team said Thursday that the Buk missile system was towed onto Ukrainian territory shortly before the attack and towed back onto Russian territory shortly afterward.

Paulissen said the investigators possessed “legal and convincing evidence that will stand in a courtroom.”

[How investigators tackled the mystery of Flight 17]

At the time of the attack in July 2014, the battlefield in eastern Ukraine was seething with different armed groups. That spring, separatist fighters opposed to a new pro-Western government in Kiev seized control of broad patches of territory in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland. They were operating with Russian support, and Western journalists also spotted at least some Russian troops moving into eastern Ukraine that summer. The Russian government has long denied direct involvement in the conflict.

Russian ambassador to the European Union, Vladi­mir Chizhov, dismissed the findings on Thursday, saying “this is an old story that was thrown into the informational environment back then, in 2014,” Interfax reported.

Rebels in eastern Ukraine on Thursday also denied possessing Russian weapons systems, Interfax reported, citing Eduard Basurin, a rebel official.

Flight MH17 took off from Amsterdam and passed over eastern Ukraine on its way to Kuala Lumpur, packed with Dutch tourists. In video footage from immediately after it was shot down, rebel fighters can be seen gathering in the sunflower fields where the bulk of the fuselage fell, celebrating what they thought was the downing of a Ukrainian military aircraft. Their celebration turned to concern when they realized that it was a civilian jetliner.

The investigators on Thursday offered only open-source video and photographic evidence to support their conclusion that the missile came from a Russian military antiaircraft system. Portions of the evidence had already been reported by the Bellingcat research group. But the international investigative team said their findings stood independently and that they possessed additional information to buttress their conclusions that they would unveil only in eventual courtroom proceedings.

Of the 298 people killed, 196 were Dutch, 42 Malaysian and 27 were Australians. Among more than 30 nationalities killed was a joint Dutch American citizen.

“We are entering the last phase of the investigation,” said Dutch prosecutor Fred Westerbeke.

Anybody charged criminally in connection with the plane’s shooting down would face justice in Dutch courts, but it is unlikely Russia would be willing to extradite citizens to face the charges, and eastern Ukraine remains in the hands of pro-Russian rebels, inaccessible to Western law enforcement.

Of the 298 victims aboard the plane, 196 were Dutch, 42 were Malaysian and 27 were Australians. One person was a dual citizen of the United States and the Netherlands.

The debris of the plane stretched across dozens of miles of sunflower fields and small villages in eastern Ukraine. Corpses rotted in the hot July sun. Dutch-language travel guides and card games from the children aboard the flight were scattered across the crash site.

Read more:

Dutch probe: Missile brought from Russia downed Malaysia Airlines plane over Ukraine

After Malaysian plane is shot down in Ukraine, grief and outrage worldwide

Russians have many theories about the MH17 crash. One involves fake dead people.

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