Russia said on Thursday it “cannot accept” the results of an investigation that found “strong indications” that Russian President Vladimir Putin was the person who approved the supply of anti-aircraft weapons to Ukrainian separatists who shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. in 2014.
The results of the investigation were announced on Wednesday by the Joint Investigation Team, made up of experts from the Netherlands, Australia, Malaysia, Belgium and Ukraine.
MH17 was traveling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia on July 17, 2014, when it was shot out of the sky over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.
“Russia was not involved in this investigation, so we cannot accept these results, especially since no basis for these statements has been made public,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday when asked about Putin’s alleged role in the disaster, according to Reuters.
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The Kremlin is rejecting an investigation which found that Russian President Vladimir Putin played a key role in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in 2014. Left, the reconstructed wreckage of MH17 is seen at the Gilze-Air military airbase. Rijen in the Netherlands in 2021. (Peter Dejong/Pool/AFP/Getty Images)
The Joint Investigation Team, during a news conference on Wednesday, played a recording of an intercepted phone call in which they said Putin could be heard discussing the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
Dutch prosecutors said in their summary of the investigation findings that “there are strong indications that the Russian president decided to supply” a Buk missile system to Ukrainian separatists. A Buk system from the Russian Army’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, based in the city of Kursk, was used to shoot down the MH17.
“Although we are talking about strong evidence, the high level of complete and conclusive evidence is not reached,” said Dutch prosecutor Digna van Boetzelaer, adding that without Russian cooperation, “the investigation has now reached its limit. All the clues”.
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Dutch investigators accompanied by armed pro-Russian rebels arrive near parts of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 at the crash site near the town of Grabove in eastern Ukraine on November 11, 2014. (Photo by MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP via Getty Images)
Peskov dismissed the phone call as inconclusive.
“We know that a recording of an alleged phone call was released… in which not a single word was said about weapons,” Peskov said, according to Reuters. “Even assuming this conversation is real… there’s not a single word about weapons. No one has posted anything else, so it’s impossible to say anything.”
But Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese vowed to continue to seek justice for the 38 Australian citizens and residents who died aboard MH17, describing Putin as “reprehensible.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin, left during a meeting in Moscow on Tuesday, is accused of approving the supply of weapons used to fire MH17 out of the sky in July 2014. (AP/Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)
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“The downing of MH17 was an act of terrorism that had an impact here in Australia, but also in many countries. And we will continue to investigate these issues with all avenues at our disposal,” Albanese said on Wednesday.
He described Putin as “a guy who runs an authoritarian regime, who doesn’t care about human rights, who doesn’t care about the devastation of communities, whether it’s in the Ukraine, whether it’s the oppression of their own citizens, or whether they’re acts outside of Russia, of which we have seen a number”.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
