MOSCOW, February 9. /TASS/. Moscow cannot accept the results of the investigation into the 2014 Malaysia Airlines MH17 crash because Russia did not participate in it, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday.
"Russia did not take any part in this investigation and, accordingly, we cannot accept its results," he noted.
When speaking about allegations of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s role in the decision to send a Buk missile system to Donbass, which was supposedly used to bring the aircraft down, Peskov stressed that "no reasons were provided for such statements."
"We know that the record of an alleged phone call (between Putin and former Head of the Lugansk People’s Republic Igor Plotnitsky - TASS) was made public, which does not mention any weapons at all. Even if we assume that such a conversation did take place," the Kremlin spokesman noted.
"I cannot confirm or deny anything here," he added. "No one has published any other conversations, so nothing can be said here," Peskov explained.
MH17 crash and investigation
Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed in the Donetsk Region of Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing 298 people from ten countries A joint investigative team (JIT) comprising representatives from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine, was established in order to carry out a criminal investigation into the crash. In June 2019, the investigators announced that they had identified a group of four people, suspected of being involved in the incident. They were former militia leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Igor Girkin, also known as Igor Strelkov, and his subordinates Sergey Dubinsky, Oleg Pulatov and Leonid Kharchenko. The trial against them in absentia began in the Netherlands on March 9, 2020. They were accused of delivering a Buk missile system from Russia to Ukraine. The prosecution demanded life imprisonment for all the defendants. On November 17, 2022, Girkin, Dubinsky and Kharchenko were sentenced in absentia to life in prison. Pulatov was acquitted for lack of sufficient evidence.
Russian officials repeatedly expressed their lack of confidence in the results of the JIT’s work, and pointed out the groundlessness of the accusations, as well as the unwillingness to use Moscow’s conclusions during the investigation.
Dutch prosecutor Digna van Boetzelaer said on Wednesday that "there are strong indications that a decision was made at the presidential level, by President Putin, to supply the DPR with the Buk TELAR or, in any event, a heavier air defense system.".