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Half Russians believe MH17 was downed by Ukrainian military — poll

Some 14% of those polled believe the Western secret services are to blame for the tragedy, while 8% consider the tragedy "a terrorist attack"

MOSCOW, October 6. /TASS/. Most Russians do not believe that Moscow was involved in the crash of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Donbass two years ago, a poll conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center showed on Thursday.

"Half of the polled Russians (50%) believe that the Boeing was downed by the Ukrainian military while 14% share the opinion that the Western secret services are to blame for the tragedy, and 8% call it a terrorist attack. The Boeing crash received a wide response in the Russian society, almost every resident of the country has heard about it," the pollster said.

The poll results show that Russians disagree with the assertion laying the blame on the militia of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic, or Russia’s secret services. Four percent and 1% of those polled said they believed in the respective theories.

Meanwhile, 64% of the polled said they were familiar with the conclusions the international investigation group had come to, announcing that the plane had been attacked from the Donbass militia-controlled area with a missile launcher brought from Russia. However, one-in-five Russians (21%) did not think the investigation outcome would have significant consequences as far as Russia is concerned while 40% of the polled are undecided if the investigation could somehow affect Russia and its people or not.

The poll was conducted on October 1-2 among 1,600 respondents in 130 locations across 46 regions throughout Russia, with a margin of error not exceeding 2.5%.

The Malaysia Airlines MH17 flight, was a Boeing-777 passenger plane journey from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. It was shot down on July 17, 2014, over Ukraine’s eastern region of Donetsk, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board. There were ten various nationals among the dead.

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

On July 21, 2014, the UN Security Council demanded a full and independent investigation. Russia’s representatives have repeatedly objected to the manner of the investigation and pointed to the data provided by Russia being neglected.