Russia found responsible for 2014 downing of aircraft

Nearly 11 years on from the horrifying missile attack on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, a United Nations (UN) body has officially found that Russia was responsible for bringing down the aircraft over eastern Ukraine.

All 298 people on board were killed when the Boeing 777-200ER, on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was blown out of the sky on 17 July 2014, with debris scattered across an area close to the village of Hrabove, in the Donetsk region.

At that time pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian military forces were in the early stages of a developing conflict and following the appalling incident, the Netherlands, from where the majority of the passengers and crew were from (196 in total), alongside Australia – who lost 38 citizens of their own – managed to bring a landmark case to a Dutch court.

The country’s government spent nearly 200m euros dealing with the aftermath, from repatriating bodies of the victims to investigating and prosecuting those responsible.

In November 2022 three men – two Russians and one Ukrainian – were convicted of murder with a fourth person, also Russian, acquitted.

However, although they were sentenced to life in prison, they had to be tried in absentia, because Moscow initially refused to extradite the men, then dismissed the verdict as “scandalous”.

In 2023, a team of investigators from the Netherlands, Australia, Ukraine, Malaysia and Belgium said there were “strong indications” that Russian president Vladimir Putin had “signed off” on a decision to supply the killer missile.

Now the council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) have agreed that Russia failed to uphold its obligations under international air law which requires that States “refrain from resorting to the use of weapons against civil aircraft in flight.”

Contact lost near border

The flight took off without any problems from Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport shortly after midday and was due to arrive at Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 6.10am Malaysian time.

Air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane two hours and 49 minutes after take-off when it was about 50km from the Russia-Ukraine border.

Passengers from many nations

There were 17 different nationalities on the doomed flight, including the already mentioned 196 Dutch and 38 Australians, plus 43 Malaysians and ten from the UK.

Representatives for the victims have acknowledged the significance of the new ruling, although the convicted – Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinsky, and Leonid Kharchenko – remain at large.

Dutch led the investigation

ICAO develops and implements global aviation strategies and technical standards and the UN agency created a special task force on risks to civil aviation arising from conflict zones in the weeks following the crash.

The Joint Investigation Team (JIT), led by the Dutch, dedicated years to amassing evidence that culminated in arrest warrants for the four accused.

The JIT determined that flight MH17 was shot down by a missile launched from a Buk TELAR installation that was transported from Russia to a farm field in eastern Ukraine, in an area controlled by separatists.

Chilling last moments uncovered

A subsequent report unveiled the chilling last moments experienced by those on the ill-fated flight, noting that only the captain and two crew members perished immediately, when the missile impacted near to the cockpit.

All other passengers survived for around 90 seconds before the plane exploded in mid-air. In a heartbreaking discovery, investigators found one of the passengers wearing an oxygen mask in the plane’s wreckage, indicating they had time to put it on before meeting their terrible fate.

Setting the global standard

The council does not hold any regulatory powers, but still sets global aviation standards which are widely followed by its member states. 

The ICAO said this ruling was the first time in its history that it has “weighed in on a dispute between two member states”.

Important step

Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp stated: “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. 

“This decision also sends a clear message to the international community: states cannot violate international law with impunity.”

Call for accountability falls on deaf ears

In a statement by Australia’s foreign minister Penny Wong, the country called upon Russia to finally face up to its responsibility and make reparations for its “egregious conduct”. 

Unsurprisingly, Moscow rejected the ICEO’s conclusions out of hand, stating that Russia had not participated in the investigation of the incident, so as a consequence, “we do not accept all these biased conclusions.”