MOSCOW, July 3. /TASS/. Russian Presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov has confirmed that Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte talked on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka and discussed the issue of the Boeing crash in Ukraine in July 2014. Rutte himself said that this conversation had taken place in an interview with RTL TV channel.

"I can confirm [that] this conversation [took place], it was a very brief exchange on the go, on the sidelines. Apart from the Dutch Prime Minister, Putin had such conversations with practically each participant of the summit. And this issue was, indeed, touched upon," Peskov said.

The Kremlin spokesman added that "the President’s position, the position of the Russian side is crystal clear and consistent, it is based on the fact that the investigation conducted without Russia can hardly be treated [seriously]."

"Such notions are constantly being delivered to our counterparts at different levels in the Netherlands and other countries," he concluded.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, a Boeing-777 passenger plane travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, crashed on July 17, 2014, in Ukraine’s eastern region of Donetsk. The crash killed all the 283 passengers, citizens of 10 countries, and 15 crewmembers. In spite of the active armed conflict on the ground, Kiev did not close its airspace over the Donbass region to international passenger flights. The international Joint Investigative Team (JIT) was set up to investigate the plane crash, it was made up of the representatives from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine.

At a press conference on May 19, 2019, the JIT claimed to have identified four persons suspected of being involved in the Boeing tragedy. The court is scheduled to hear their cases on March 9, 2020.