THE HAGUE, December 23. /TASS/. The defense of Oleg Pulatov, who has been indicted in the case of the MH17 crash in Ukraine, intends to acquit their client, according to the statement by lawyers Sabine ten Doesschate and Boudewijn van Eijck released on Wednesday.

"During our plea, probably in March 2022, we will explain how wrong the investigation was. How dangerous it is if the outcome of a criminal investigation is already 'determined' for the Public Prosecutor before an investigation has really got off the ground," the statement reads. "We will, during our plea, request the court with confidence to acquit our client and we have faith in the right outcome," Sabine ten Doesschate and Boudewijn van Eijck stressed.

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. The Joint Investigative Team (JIT) was established in order to carry out a criminal investigation of the tragedy. In June 2019, the JIT announced that it had identified a group of four people, suspected of being involved in the incident. They are former militia leader in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic Igor Girkin, also known as Igor Strelkov, and his subordinates Sergey Dubinsky, Oleg Pulatov and Leonid Kharchenko. The trial against them began in the Netherlands on March 9, 2020. They are accused of delivering a Buk missile system from Russia to Ukraine. The trial is taking place in the absence of the accused. 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.