BRUSSELS, July 16. /TASS/. The European Union reiterates its call to Russia to help establish accountability in the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 crash in eastern Ukraine in 2014, EU High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security PolicyJosep Borrell said in a statement on Friday.
"On 17 July, we commemorate the seventh anniversary of the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, when 298 people of 17 different nationalities lost their lives," the statement says. "The European Union reiterates its full support for all efforts to establish the truth."
"Recalling its previous statements, the European Union takes note of all steps that have been taken in this regard and expects Russia to accept its responsibility and to fully cooperate with efforts to establish accountability including through the trilateral negotiations between Australia, the Netherlands and the Russian Federation," the document says.
MH17 air disaster
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 considerMoscow’s conclusions during the investigation.