The wreckage of the Malaysia Airlines passenger plane
(Picture: AP)There are “strong indications” Russian President Vladimir Putin approved the use of a Russian missile system that shot down a passenger plane over Ukraine killing hundreds of people, prosecutors have said.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) was shot down over eastern Ukraine in 2014, killing all 298 passengers and crew on board.
But prosecutors have said evidence of Putin’s and other Russian officials’ involvement is not concrete enough to lead to a criminal conviction, and that they are ending their probe without further prosecutions.
Russia has denied any involvement with the downing of the civilian airliner.
“The investigation has now reached its limit,” prosecutor Digna van Boetzelaer told a news conference in The Hague on Wednesday. “The findings are insufficient for the prosecution of new suspects.”
The Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was brought down by a Buk missile fired by pro-Moscow Ukrainian rebels on July 17, 2014, a Dutch court determined in November following a two-year trial.
The court convicted two former Russian intelligence agents and a Ukrainian separatist leader of murder for helping arrange the Russian missile system that was used to shoot down the plane. The three men, who were tried in absentia, remain at large.
At the time the plane was shot down, Ukrainian forces were fighting Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk province.
While Russia had annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014, it denied military involvement in fighting in Donetsk at that time.
But as part of the conviction of the three men in November, the Dutch court ruled that Russia had in fact had “overall control” of separatist forces in Donetsk starting from May 2014.
Prosecutors said on Wednesday they could not identify the specific soldiers responsible for firing the missile system that downed the plane, which came from Russia’s 53rd brigade in Kursk.
They cited a 2014 phone intercept between Russian officials as evidence that Putin’s approval had been necessary before a request for equipment made by the separatists could be granted.
In addition, they played a 2017 conversation between Putin himself and the Russian-appointed chief administrator of Ukraine’s Luhansk province in which they discussed the military situation and a prisoner exchange.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and in September said it had annexed Donetsk and three other Ukrainian provinces.
Piet Ploeg, who heads a foundation representing victims, said he was disappointed that the investigation had ended, but was glad prosecutors had laid out their evidence for Putin’s involvement.
“We can’t do a lot with it, Putin can’t be prosecuted, he said. “We wanted to know who was ultimately responsible and that’s clear.”
Mr Ploeg’s brother, sister-in-law, and nephew died on MH17.
