SBU calls intl report on investigation into Malaysian Boeing crash 'sentence to Russia'
The results of the investigation conducted by the international investigation commission into the crash of the Malaysian Boeing in Donbas in July 2014 play an important role in determining those responsible for the tragedy, Vasyl Hrytsak, head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), has said.
"The tentative conclusions drawn by the Joint Investigation Team on the Boeing downed by Russian aggressors were published yesterday [...]. All people can now judge whether Russia is an aggressor or not. Even tentative investigation data can serve as a sentence to the Russian side," Hrytsak told reporters in Kyiv on Thursday.
The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 Flight MH17 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down in the airspace over Donetsk region on July 17, 2014. All 298 people on board were killed.
The Joint Investigation Team (JIT), comprising prosecutors and representatives of other law enforcement agencies of Ukraine, the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia and Malaysia, and also representatives of Eurojust, was created on August 7, 2014.
The first results of the criminal investigation into the MH17 crash were presented in the Netherlands on September 28, 2016.
According to the Joint Investigation Team, the Boeing 777 Flight MH17 operated by Malaysia Airlines was downed by a 9M38 missile of a Buk anti-aircraft missile complex, launched from the Pervomaisk district in Donbas, six kilometers south of the Snizhne populated area which was controlled at the time by Donbas militants. Investigators noted that the missile complex had been brought to eastern Ukraine from Russia and later sent back to Russia.
Russian experts said on the day that they find it incorrect that there is no technical investigation into the presentation by the international investigative team on the Malaysian Boeing crash in Donbas. Mikhail Malyshevsky, adviser to the main constructor at Almaz-Antey, said the crash of the Malaysian Boeing in Donbas could have been caused by a missile of an old modification of a Buk system fired from an area controlled by the Ukrainian military.
Russian presidential press officer Dmitry Peskov, for his part, said the report by the international investigation group investigating the Boeing 777 crash in Ukraine on July 17, 2014 cannot be regarded as "the final truth."
Alexander Zakharchenko, head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), told reporters on Thursday that the militants did not down the Malaysian Boeing.
