BREAKING: Relatives of MH17 victims who have met privately with Joint Investigative Committee (JIT) officials, say the JIT has determined MH17 was shot down by a Buk missile from separatist-controlled territory in Ukraine and that the missile system was smuggled into Ukraine from Russia and then removed back to Russia after the disaster.
International Criminal Probe To Release Interim Report On MH17 Tragedy
By RFE/RL
The international criminal investigation into the shooting down of a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet over Ukraine in 2014 is scheduled to issue its interim findings on September 28.
The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) will discuss its findings at a press conference in the Netherlands.
The probe is widely expected to conclude that MH17 was shot down by a Russian-made Buk antiaircraft missile fired from an area controlled by Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
MH17 was shot down on July 17, 2014, while flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. All 298 passengers and crew on board perished.
An earlier report by the Dutch Safety Board also concluded that MH17 was downed by a Buk fired from separatist-controlled territory.
Moscow denies providing such weaponry to the fighters that it has been supporting in eastern Ukraine, as well as any involvement in the downing of MH17.
In the days before the JIT report, Russia has stepped up efforts to assert other explanations for the MH17 disaster. At a Moscow press conference on September 26, the Russian Defense Ministry said the JIT probe was going “in the wrong direction.”
Moscow released what it claimed as “new” radar evidence showing MH17 was downed by a missile shot from territory held by Ukrainian troops. This claim contradicted Moscow’s previous assertion that it had radar evidence showing MH17 had been shot down by a Ukrainian Air Force fighter jet.
In July 2015, Russia used its UN Security Council veto to block a resolution aimed at creating an international MH17 tribunal, saying that doing so would be “counterproductive.”
The JIT has been working with the British-based nongovernmental organization Bellingcat, which has used open-source online information such as social media posts to track the movement of a Buk missile unit from near the Russian city of Kursk to the Ukrainian village of Snizhne in the days before the MH17 downing and to track the same units return to Russia immediately afterward.
Bellingcat has given the JIT a dossier identifying around 100 Russia military personnel who may have been involved in the incident. Experts in the Netherlands say it is unlikely that the JIT interim report will name any specific suspects.
The JIT includes representatives of the countries most affected by the tragedy -- the Netherlands, Australia, Malaysia, and Belgium working in cooperation with Ukraine. Its purpose is to develop evidence that could be used in criminal prosecutions in any of those countries.
With reporting by The Guardian, Interfax, TASS, and the BBC
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