Australia and the Netherlands have said they hold Russia legally responsible for the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight 17 over Ukraine in 2014 and will seek reparations for relatives of the 298 people killed.
Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop said Russia was “directly involved in the bringing down” of MH17 and would be held accountable under international law.
“Australia and the Netherlands have requested Russia to enter into negotiations, to open up a dialogue about its conduct and to seek reparations,” she said on Australia’s ABC News.
A statement from the government of the Netherlands, which lost 154 citizens in the tragedy, said a possible next step would be taking the case against Russia to an international court or organisation.
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Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok called on Russia to “accept its responsibility and cooperate fully with the process to establish the truth and achieve justice for the victims of flight MH17”.
The accusations raise the possibility of another stand-off with Russia, which has been hit with new US sanctions and the expulsion of its diplomats from Western countries over the Salisbury poisoning, as it gears up to host the World Cup next month.
Mr Blok said the attempts by Australia and the Netherlands to bring Russia to account under international law would be separate from any made by the ongoing investigation.
Relying largely on photos and videos published to social media, the investigation team established a visual “fingerprint” of the missile launcher in question and traced its route from the base of Russia’s 53rd anti-aircraft brigade to the Ukraine border. It was photographed in war-torn eastern Ukraine the day MH17 was shot down.
The team previously established that a Buk missile fired from an area in eastern Ukraine controlled by Russia-backed separatists destroyed the plane.
Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images
Moscow has put out unlikely theories blaming Ukraine for MH17 and continued to deny the allegations against it even as the evidence mounts. The Russian defence ministry said on Thursday “not a single anti-aircraft missile of the Russian armed forces has ever crossed the Russian-Ukrainian border”.
When asked about the latest findings during a press conference with French president Emmanuel Macron on Thursday, Mr Putin retorted that Russia should have been allowed to participate in the investigation, which includes countries that lost citizens on the flight as well as Ukraine.
Ms Bishop said the families of the 38 Australians killed want Russia to be held to account and should receive compensation.
“They want to see closure but they also deserve justice and we will be seeking reparations for the atrocities caused by this conduct,” she said.
Also on Friday, the open-source investigative group Bellingcat and the Russian news outlet The Insider named one of the MH17 investigation’s persons of interest, a commander with the call-sign “Orion,” as an officer in Russia’s GRU military intelligence.
Bellingcat previously said another MH17 investigation person of interest known as “Dolphin” was a retired Russian colonel general.
“They are trying to take revenge for their planes,” Orion said of Ukrainian airstrikes in a conversation intercepted three days before MH17 was downed. “We have a Buk, f*** them, we’ll shoot them down.”
Having tracked their suspect down through a history of online purchase, the open-source investigators reached him by phone and heard what they said was the same distinctive high voice as that in the intercepted recordings.
Remko de Waal/AFP/Getty Images
They also found documents listing him as an employee of the Russian defence ministry.
It was unlikely that anyone except Russian military officers would have been allowed to operate the sophisticated Buk missile system, they added.
“If Vladimir Putin wants to prove that Russia had nothing to do with (MH17), then … let us interview him,” Roman Dobrokhutov, editor of The Insider, told journalists. “If he’s not guilty then it’s no problem.”