Russian Military Supplied Missile That Shot Down Malaysian Jet, Prosecutors Say

Image

Parts of an antiaircraft system used to shoot down a civilian airliner in Ukraine in 2014, at a news conference in the Netherlands on Thursday.CreditFrançois Lenoir/Reuters

By Andrew E. Kramer

May 24, 2018

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — An international team of prosecutors has identified the Russian military unit that supplied an antiaircraft missile system used to shoot down a civilian airliner over Ukraine four years ago, adding specificity to its earlier finding that Russia was to blame.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down as Russian-backed separatists battled the Ukrainian military in July, 2014. All 298 people aboard were killed. The airplane broke up in the sky and scattered debris and bodies over a wide area.

Western governments quickly blamed Russia, saying it had sent the missile launcher as military aid to the rebels. Russia has denied any role in the shooting down of the plane, though multiple witnesses saw the launcher arriving in Ukraine from Russia on public roads.

Two investigations carried out in the Netherlands have proceeded more slowly to reach the same conclusions, drawing on evidence gathered methodically in the ensuing years.

The plane was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, and a majority of the victims were Dutch citizens. The Dutch Safety Board, an investigating body, concluded in 2015 that a type of Russian missile known as a Buk had destroyed the Boeing 777.

The following year, the Joint Investigation Team, formed with prosecutors from Austria, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine, traced the missile launcher’s route from Russia to Ukraine and back. It said then that it had narrowed a pool of suspects to about 100 people.

Announcing interim findings on Thursday in the Netherlands, Wilbert Paulissen, a criminal investigator with the country’s national police, said the Russian 53rd Anti-Aircraft Brigade had provided the missile launcher.

He said investigators had not determined whether soldiers from this unit had also operated the system in Ukraine, or if it had been operated by Ukrainian separatists. But he said that the pool of suspects had now been narrowed to a few dozen people.

The Joint Investigation Team began its work after Russia vetoed a Dutch proposal to form a United Nations tribunal to study the disaster and punish those responsible.

The Russian Constitution prohibits the extradition of its citizens to face charges abroad. If indictments were to be handed down, therefore, the suspects would probably be tried in absentia.

Follow Andrew E. Kramer on Twitter: @AndrewKramerNYT.