Russia was responsible for shooting down a Malaysian airliner over eastern Ukraine, which killed all 298 passengers and crew, the United Nations aviation council has ruled.
Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 was en route to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam in July 2014 when it was destroyed by a Russian surface-to-air missile. Two Russian citizens and one Ukrainian were sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment by a Dutch court in 2022.
The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) will rule on what form of reparation is appropriate in the coming weeks, the Australian and Dutch governments said. There were 196 Dutch citizens, 43 Malaysians, 38 Australians and ten Britons on board.
“The decision is an important step towards establishing the truth and achieving justice and accountability for all victims of Flight MH17, and their families and loved ones,” Caspar Veldkamp, the Dutch foreign minister, said. “This decision also sends a clear message to the international community: states cannot violate international law with impunity.”
Penny Wong, the Australian foreign minister, urged Russia to “finally face up to its responsibility for this horrific act of violence and make reparations for its egregious conduct, as required under international law”.
A Dutch-led joint investigation team said in 2023 that President Putin most likely signed off on the delivery of the Buk missile system that brought down the aircraft as fighting raged between Russian proxy forces and Ukrainian troops in the Donetsk region.
The Kremlin has denied that it was involved in the shooting down of the aircraft and has refused to extradite the wanted men. Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, on Tuesday dismissed the ICAO ruling as “biased conclusions.”
The ICAO, which is based in Montreal, sets global aviation standards for its 193 member states, including Russia but it lacks regulatory powers. This is the first time it has intervened in a dispute between member states.
• Russian ex‑spy Igor Girkin takes ‘moral responsibility’ for downing of MH17
Igor “Strelkov” Girkin, one of the men convicted over the downing of the plane, is serving four years in a Russian prison after criticising Putin’s handling of the war. A former Russian FSB officer, Girkin was in charge of pro-Moscow forces in eastern Ukraine at the time of the disaster.
He told The Times in 2020 that he accepted his “moral responsibility” for the MH17 deaths but insisted that his forces “did not bring down the plane”. When asked if his comments could be construed as an admission that the regular Russian army had fired the missile, he said: “People can interpret this as they like.”
The other two wanted men — Sergey Dubinsky, a former major general with Russian military intelligence and Leonid Kharchenko, a Ukrainian citizen who supports Moscow –— are both believed to be living in Russia.
