MOSCOW, October 2. /TASS/. The chairman of the State Duma’s International Affairs Committee, Leonid Slutsky, has described as the "voice of reason" the proposal of the Dutch parliamentarians to initiate a probe into the role of Ukraine in the MH17 flight disaster over Ukraine’s Donetsk Region in July 2014.
"In the MH17 disaster case the voice of reason has been heard at last: Dutch legislators demanded a probe into the role of Ukraine in the crash of the Malaysian Boeing. An impartial probe will turn all suspicion about Russia’s complicity to dust," Slutsky tweeted on Wednesday.
Earlier, Dutch parliament members demanded the country’s government should study the role of Ukraine in the MH17 flight disaster, as follows from a proposal supported by all parties that took part in Tuesday evening’s debate. The legislators said that to achieve clarity regarding the failure to close the air space over and around Eastern Ukraine further examination of facts would be necessary. They demanded that the government should consider what options there exist for conducting such a fact-finding probe and report the results to the lower house of parliament.
A passenger Boeing-777 of Malaysia Airlines (flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur) was shot down on July 17, 2014 in the Donetsk Region of Ukraine. A total of 298 passengers and crew — nationals of ten countries — died in the crash. Although hostilities were underway in the area on the ground Kiev failed to close Donbass airspace to international passenger flights. A Joint Investigation Team incorporating Australian, Belgian, Malaysian, Dutch and Ukrainian officials was created.
Last June the JIT said it had identified four suspected accomplices in the plane’s crash: three Russians — Igor Girkin (also known under the nickname Strelkov), Sergei Dubinsky and Oleg Pulatov. The fourth suspect is Ukrainian citizen Leonid Kharchenko. A court trial is scheduled to begin on March 9, 2020.