MOSCOW, November 18. /TASS/. Moscow can neither verify nor evaluate data provided by Kiev for the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) investigating MH17 crash in Ukraine, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday.
Peskov commented on the publication of talks that Russian Presidential Aide Vladislav Surkov had allegedly held with participants of combat actions in southeastern Ukraine.
"We don’t have any chance to somehow evaluate the quality and credibility of these materials [provided by Kiev] and therefore we cannot comment on them," Peskov said.
"All information comes from the JIT, and unfortunately, Russia has never been a party to it, and de facto, it was refused the right to take part in it despite Russia’s readiness to provide every support and make a sizable contribution to investigating this appalling tragedy," Peskov said.
The Kremlin spokesman noted that various materials for this investigative team come from Ukraine, which bears full responsibility for its failure to close airspace for civil aviation.
The Boeing-777 passenger plane operated by Malaysian Airlines crashed on July 17, 2014, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur in the east of the Donetsk Region. As a result, 298 people, citizens of 10 states, were killed in the crash. The parties to the armed conflict in Donbass accused each other of being complicit in the tragedy.
Despite active combat actions, Kiev did not close airspace over Donbass for international passenger flights. The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) was set up to investigate the tragedy, consisting of representatives from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine.