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Russia responds to all Dutch prosecutors’ requests on MH17 crash — Lavrov

Moscow has provided assistance to the investigation and during its technical stage, the Russian foreign minister said

MOSCOW, April 13. /TASS/. Russia is answering all requests of Dutch prosecutors regarding the crash of the Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) in eastern Ukraine in 2014, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after talks with his Dutch counterpart Stef Blok.

"We have indeed provided assistance to the investigation and during its technical stage. We continue providing this assistance now when the criminal investigation is underway," Lavrov said. "We are answering and have answered all requests of Dutch prosecutors in the context of providing legal assistance."

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Investigators looking into the downing of flight MH17 in Ukraine should not ignore the facts about the crash that have already been found out, Lavrov said.

"There is the need to strictly comply with the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2166, which demands that the UN Security Council should be regularly provided with information about the investigation," Lavrov said. "We have agreed to continue this dialogue taking into account what our Dutch colleagues said about the independence of the team investigating into the accident. We respect independence but believe that it does not mean that facts may be ignored, though investigators haven’t been paying attention to them," the Russian top diplomat added.

Lavrov also said that at the meeting with the Dutch foreign minister he had thoroughly explained "the steps that Russia has many times made at the government level and through the Almaz-Antey company in order to provide all the information that we have for an unbiased and impartial investigation."

MH17 crash case

The Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, a Boeing-777 passenger plane travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down on July 17, 2014, over Ukraine’s eastern region of Donetsk. The crash killed all the 283 passengers and 15 crewmembers. There were nationals of ten states among the dead, most of them Dutch.

The Ukrainian authorities and the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic militia accused each other of downing the plane.

The Joint Investigation Team looking into the MH17 crash comprises representatives of the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, Malaysia and Ukraine.

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