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Moscow considers authors of BBC film on MH17 crash prejudiced against Russia

According to Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, the film gives the impression that the Russian contribution to the investigation is ridiculed
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova Anton Novoderezhkin/TASS
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova
© Anton Novoderezhkin/TASS

MOSCOW, May 6. /TASS/. The BBC film about the crash of Malaysia Airlines’ Boeing-777 (Flight MH17) over Ukraine in June 2014 cannot be considered objective, as the filmmakers are obviously prejudiced against Russia, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday.

"This film cannot be called objective. The authors promised to analyze all the versions, but actually confirmed only one. It is obvious to us that the filmmakers are prejudiced against Russia," she said.

Zakharova added that the film did not reflect the views of any Russian officials. "It gives the impression that the Russian contribution to the investigation is ridiculed", she added.

The Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said that "a similar assessment can be given to the recent so-called Bellingcat report". "Unfortunately, all our calls for using all the verified information provided by the Russian side on the MH17 tragedy over Ukraine were ignored," she said.

"I would like to say that the coverage of this topic by the Western media, in the blogosphere, the general form of presenting the information on this subject - are extremely politicized and testify to certain mythologization of this tragedy in which the opinion of professionals, consideration of the evidence, materials, expert examination results is neglected and instead a very clear image is formed by certain artistic devices that are presented as journalistic investigations," Zakharova said.

"We believe that all this campaign is an attempt by certain destructive forces to fix in the mass consciousness an artificially created image that is very far from reality and that demonizes Russia and the militias (in Ukraine’s self-proclaimed republic in the south-eastern Donbass region). It’s a very dangerous trend", she said.

The Malaysia Airlines Boeing-777 passenger airliner on a flight from the Dutch city of Amsterdam to the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur crashed in the area of hostilities between local militias and Ukrainian governmental troops in east Ukraine’s Donetsk region in July 2014. All 298 people aboard the airliner, including the crewmembers, died in the air crash.

Most of the air crash’s victims were Dutch nationals.

Versions were put forward that the airliner could have been hit by a surface-to-air or an air-to air missile.

The Ukrainian authorities and the militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) accused each other of shooting down the airliner. The UN Security Council passed a resolution on July 21 to hold a comprehensive and independent probe into the crash.

Russia’s representatives have said on many occasions they are dissatisfied with how the investigation was carried out and that the data presented by the Russian side were ignored.

Russian specialists investigating the MH17 crash modelled the airliner’s flight and came to the conclusion that the missile, which could have hit the passenger plane, had been fired from the territory uncontrolled by the DPR militia at that time.