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Russian, Western experts disagree on MH17 missile launch location — judge

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

SCHIPHOL /The Netherlands/, June 9. /TASS/. Experts from Russia’s Almaz-Antey disagree with the specialists of the Royal Netherlands Aerospace Centre (NLR) and the Belgium Royal Military Academy regarding the launch location of the missile that took down the MH17 Boeing in Ukraine in July 2014, Judge Heleen Kerstens-Fockens said Wednesday.

"The conclusions of the Almaz-Antey representatives differ from the conclusions of the NLR and the Royal Military Academy," she said. "Almaz-Antey came to the conclusion that the launch location must be much farther to the south."

Besides, according to the judge, Almaz-Antey pointed out that the Western experts did not examine all the debris necessary to make any conclusions. In turn, the NLR and the Royal Military Academy claim that they have enough information.

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. 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.

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.